t  k-  ^••M^^BfcIKn(lBnBkJBVt*9wBlm»MKKiiRit3ttsre 

?  t;  B^^BlBBBBBmiBmKBBmSiSl^S 

»'  I-  £  mJJ&SM]  -  V !°'-  >  ::"0.''V;  :'V<;V>'ov  • ;  •  '^ /  ' '; :-;-  ;- 

K  I V    BHHBs^raKm^S^SI^^ 


EBHi 

^B^BHSBI 


LIBRARY  OF  THE 
UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS 
AT  URBANA-CHAMPAIGN 

973.795 
H29n 

ir-iCOLN  ROOK 


"      ' 


LINCOLN  ROOM 


UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS 
LIBRARY 


NA  TIO NA  L     SER  M O N S . 


SPEECHES  AND  LETTERS 


SLAVERY  AND  ITS  WAR: 

FROM    THE 

PASSAGE   OF  THE  FUGITIVE   SLAVE  BILL    TO   THE 
ELECTION   OF  PRESIDENT  GRANT. 


BY 


GILBERT    HAVEN. 


BOSTON: 

LEE     AND     SHEPARD. 
1869. 


Entered,  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1869,  by 

GILBERT    HAVEN, 
In  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  Court  of  the  District  of  Massachusetts. 


Electrotyped  at  the  Boston  Stereotype  Foundry, 
No.  19  Spring  Lane. 


Press  work  by  John  Wilson  and  Son. 


A 


\\ 


ro 


OF 

THE    NEW    ENGLAND     CONFERENCE     OF    THE    METHODIST 
EPISCOPAL    CHURCH, 

The  first  organized  body  in  America  that  accepted  and  proclaimed 

the  duty  of  the  immediate  and  unconditional   abolition  of 

slavery,  after  its  announcement  by    William  Lloyd 

Garrison;   and  that  adhered  faithfully  to 

this  cause,  through  evil  report  and 

good  report,  until  God 

gave    it    the 

victory  : 


Devoted  to  the  consideration  of  this  reform,  in  its  past,  present, 

and  future  relations  to  the   Church,  the  Nation, 

and  Mankind, 

10  (JIorMalli)  Inscribed, 


In  gratitude  for  their  fatherly  guidance,  in  memory  of  their  fra- 
ternal cooperation,  and  in  hope  of  the  early  obliteration  of  the 
unchristian  prejudice,  graying  out  of  the  abolished  iniquity,  that 
still  afflicts  the  American  people,  and  for  whose  extirpation  this 
Conference  has  so  long  and  so  ardently  labored  and  prayed. 


644745 


"  5Tfjese  tfjincjs  came  to  pass 
jFrom  small  beginnings  because  ©oti  is  just." 


I^TKODUCTOKY. 


OSiTIHE  New  England  ministry,  like  the  Jewish,  from 


its  origin,  has  been  faithful  in  setting  forth  the 
relations  of  the  Gospel  to  the  laws  and  customs 
of  man.  From  the  times  of  John  Cotton  until 
now,  twice  every  year,  and  oftener  if  events  demanded, 
have  their  words  proclaimed  the  alarm  or  the  exultation, 
as  national  sin  or  national  virtue  gave  the  occasion. 

So  great  was  the  clerical  influence  in  these  matters,  that 
in  the  earliest  days  it  was  well  nigh  a  clerical  supremacy ; 
and  the  election  sermon  was  not  unfrequently  a  more  im- 
portant document  than  the  Governor's  message. 

In  the  exercise  of  this  prerogative  occurred  the  natural 
division  of  the  human  mind  on  every  topic  submitted  to 
its  consideration,  and  radical  and  conservative  were  devel- 
oped, at  the  start,  with  a  violence  never  surpassed  in  later 
controversies.  The"  history  of  the  Province  of  Massachu- 
setts Bay,  even  in  the  days  of  Governor  Winthrop,  dis- 
closes this  furious  pulpil  war  upon  questions  of  civil  and 

social  import. 

(v) 


vi  INTRODUCTORY. 

But  witl  this  natural  divergence,  its  main  drift  was  ever 
toward  political  righteousness.  It  fostered  the  spirit  of 
independence  in  the  colonies,  long  before  the-  people  gained 
strength  to  assert  it.  It  was  the  supporter  of  Congress 
and  the  army  through  all  that  war,  so  long,  so  wasting, 
so  often  seemingly  lost. 

Rev.  Jonas  Clark,  of  Lexington,  was  the  chief  cause 
why  the  untrained  militia  of  that  hamlet  dared  to  confront 
the  armed  and  disciplined  troops  of  their  own  government. 
A  sermon  of  Rev.  Jonathan  Mayhew  of  the  West  Church, 
Boston,  on  the  Higher  Law,  by  the  confession  of  John 
Adams,  was  the  opening  gun  of  the  Revolution.  President 
Langdon,  of  Harvard  College,  blessed,  on  that  June  night, 
the  troops  that  marched  from  College  Green  to  Bunker 
Hill.  President  Styles,  of  Yale,  was  a  most  ardent  advo- 
cate of  the  national  cause,  as  was  his  eminent  successor, 
President  Dwight,  who  had  also  served  as  a  chaplain  in 
the  Revolutionary  army. 

The  later  and  greater  struggle  through  which  America 
has  passed,  was  equally  honored  and  upheld  by  the  pulpit 
of  New  England.  It  found  its  earliest  martyrs  among  this 
class.  Torrey  and  Lovejoy,  the  first  two  witnesses  who 
laid  down  their  lives  for  the  abolition  of  slavery,  were  New 
England  ministers.  Channing  sprang  to  this  conflict  in  the 
maturity  of  his  powers  and  his  fame.  The  New  England 
Methodist  clergy  very  early  identified  themselves  with  this 
cause.  June  4,  1835,  the  New  England  Conference,  sitting 
in  Lynn,  organized  an  anti-slavery  society  on  the  basis  of 
the  immediate  and  unconditional  abolition  of  slavery,  and 
invited  George  Thompson  to  address  them.  He  preached  a 
very  powerful  sermon  from  Ezekiel  xxviii.  14—16.  '•  Thou 


INTRODUCTORY.  vii 

art  the  anointed  cherub  that  covereth ;  and  I  have  set  thee 
so ;  thou  walkest  upon  the  holy  mountain  of  God  ;  thou 
hast  walked  up  and  down  in  the  midst  of  the  stones  of 
fire.  By  the  multitude  of  thy  merchandise  they  have  filled 
the  midst  of  thee  with  violence,  and  thou  hast  sinned; 
therefore  I  will  cast  thee  as  profane  out  of  the  mountain 
of  God  :  and  I  will  destroy  thee,  0  covering  cherub,  from 
the  midst  of  the  stones  of  fire."  North  Bennett  Street 
Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  in  Boston,  was  opened  to  him 
that  year,  on  Fast  Day,  for  a  sermon,  and  received  these 
words  of  commendation  for  their  courage  from  the  pen  of 
Mr.  Garrison  :  — 

In  these  days  of  slavish  servility  and  malignant  prejudices,  we  are 
presented,  occasionally,  with  some  beautiful  specimens  of  Christian 
obedience  and  courage.  One  of  these  is  seen  in  the  opening  of  the 
North  Bennett  Street  Methodist  Meeting-House,  in  Boston,  to  the 
advocates  for  the  honor  of  God,  the  salvation  of  our  country,  and  the 
freedom  of  enslaved  millions  in  our  midst. 

He,  however,  declares  that  every  other  church  was  closed 
to  him  at  that  time,  in  this  strong,  possibly  too  strong, 
assertion  :  — 

As  the  pen  of  the  historian,  in  after  years,  shall  trace  the  rise,  pro- 
gress, and  glorious  triumph  of  the  abolition  cause,  he  will  delight  to 
record,  and  posterity  will  delight  to  read,  the  fact  that  when  all  other 
pulpits  were  dumb,  all  other  churches  closed,  on  the  subject  of  slavery, 
in  Boston,  the  boasted  "  CRADLE  OF  LIBERTY,"  there  was  one  pulpit 
that  would  speak  out,  one  church  that  would  throw  open  its  doors  in 
behalf  of  the  down-trodden  victims  of  American  tyranny,  and  that  was 
the  pulpit  and  the  church  above  alluded  to.  The  primitive  spirit  of 
Methodism  is  beginning  to  revive,  with  all  its  holy  zeal  and  courage,  and 
it  will  not  falter  until  the  Methodist  churches  are  purged  from  the  pol- 
lution of  slavery,  and  the  last  slave  in  the  land  stands  forth  a  redeemed 
and  regenerated  being. 

When  Mr.  Thompson,  persecuted  for  this  righteousness' 
sake,  was  compelled  to  hide  himself  from  his  enemies,  he 


Till  INTRODUCTORY. 

took  sh  ,lter  with  Rev.  S.  W.  "Wilson,  at  Andover,  a  member 
of  the  same  Conference,  from  whose  house  he  went  to  the 
ship  that  bore  him  from  the  country.  Rev.  Orange  Scott, 
also  of  this  Conference,  commenced  writing  against  slavery 
in  "  Zion's  Herald,"  in  1834,  and  during  the  same  year  sent 
"  The  Liberator  "  free,  for  six  months,  to  all  the  ministers 
of  his  Conference.*  This  faithful  culture  brought  forth 
early  fruit,  and  the  very  next  year,  when  the  society  was 
formed,  delegates  were  elected  to  the  General  Conference, 
who  had  the  honor  of  initiating  this  conflict  at  Cincinnati, 
and  of  arousing  a  large  church  to  the  controversy,  before 
their  associates  had  widely  extended  their  growing  influ- 
ence. Two  of  the  members  from  New  Hampshire  were 
censured  for  attending  an  anti-slavery  prayer  meeting,  —  a 
censure  which  remained  a  blot  upon  the  church  until  1868, 
when,  on  petition  of  members  from  Maryland,  it  was  ex- 
punged, and  the  church  relieved  from  the  blame  which  she 
had  for  so  many  years  fastened  upon  herself  in  their  con- 
demnation. 

Equally  zealous  were  other  New  England  ministers : 
A.  A.  Phelps,  Joshua  Leavitt,  Dr.  Osgood  of  Springfield, 
James  Porter,  Dr.  Ide  of  Medway,  George  Storrs,  John 
Pierpont,  Nathaniel  Colver,  Samuel  J.  May,  J.  D.  Bridge, 
Daniel  Wise,  Phineas  Crandall — everywhere  began  to  spring 
up  this  good  seed  in  this  good  soil.  True,  the  churches  and 
clergy  were  not  all,  or  instantly  converted,  and  many  severe 

and  just  scourgings  both  received  from  those  who  devoted 

• 

themselves  exclusively  to  the  great  reform.    Yet  they  made 

*  For  these  facts  we  are  indebted  to  Rev.  R.  W.  Allen,  of  Ntwton, 
one  of  the  original  members  of  this  New  England  Conference  Anti- 
Slarery  Society. 


INTRODUCTORY,  ix 

greater  progress  than  was  sometimes  conceded,  and  before 
twenty  years  had  elapsed,  so  universal  had  become  their 
adhesion  to  this  cause,  that  in  the  conflict  over  the  repeal 
of  the  Missouri  Compromise,  more  than  three  thousand  min- 
isters of  New  England  protested,  "in  the  name  of  Almighty 
God,  and  in  His  presence,"  against  that  measure,  and 
Charles  Sumner,  then  fresh  in  the  seat  he  has  so  long  and  so 
highly  honored,  gave  them  this  just  and  noble  tribute  :  — 

From  the  first  settlement  of  these  shores,  from  those  early  days  of 
struggle  and  privation,  through  the  trials  of  the  Revolution,  the  clergy 
have  been  associated,  not  only  with  the  piety  and  the  learning,  but  with 
the  liberties  of  the  country.  For  a  long  time  New  England  was  governed 
by  their  prayers  more  than  by  any  acts  of  the  legislature:  and,  at  a 
later  day,  their  voices  aided  even  the  Declaration  of  Independence. 
The  clergy  of  our  time  may  speak,  then,  not  only  from  their  own  virtues, 
but  from  the  echoes  which  yet  live  in  the  pulpits  of  their  fathers. 

For  myself,  I  desire  to  thank  them  for  their  generous  interposition. 
They  have  already  done  much  good  in  moving  the  country.  They  will 
not  be  idle.  In  the  days  of  the  Revolution,  John  Adams,  yearning  for 
independence,  said,  "  Let  the  pulpits  thunder  against  oppression !  " 
and  the  pulpits  thundered.  The  time  has  come  for  them  to  thunder 
again. 

These  discourses  have,  therefore,  a  natural  origin.  They 
are  of  the  root  of  the  fathers,  alike  of  the  oldest  and  the 
youngest  of  the  churches  of  New  England.  They  were 
delivered  on  the  days  appointed  by  the  State  or  National  gov- 
ernment, for  the  consideration  of  State  and  National  duties, 
except  in  a  very  few  instances,  when  the  occurrence  of  re- 
markable events  demanded  the  solemn  consideration  of  the 
will  of  God  in  respect  to  a  sinning  nation.  They  are  upon 
nearly  all  the  salient  events  in  the  controversy,  from  the  hour 
when  the  nation,  through  her  government,  avowed  herself 
the  propagandist  of  slavery,  to  that  when  she  declared  that 
the  last  vestige  of  the  iniquity  should  be  swept  from  the  land. 


X  INTRODUCTORY. 

The  passage  of  the  Fugitive  Slave  Bill  was  the  beginning 
of  her  active  cooperation  with  slavery,  after  the  revival  of 
the  refoi  n,  Before  this,  she  had  only  sought  to  stay  the 
progress  of  thai  movement.  In  this  act  she  cast  herself 
earnestly  into  tL  3  support  and  extension  of  slavery.  With 
rapid  steps  she  plunged  downward,  till  all  the  departments 
of  State,  executive,  judicial,  and  legislative,  were  leagued 
together  in  its  baleful  service.  She  descended  to  the  ut- 
most possible  degree  of  degradation.  Another  step  would 
have  been  annihilation,  and  even  that,  her  executive  and 
supreme  judiciary  essayed  to  take.  Only  the  mighty  up- 
rising of  the  people,  under  the  inspiration  of  God,  saved  her 
from  being  blotted  out  from  among  the  nations.  From  the 
hour  of  that  return,  her  steps  have  been  equally  rapid  in 
the  right  direction.  Eighteen  hundred  and  sixty  beheld 
her  President  and  Chief  Justice  prostrate  at  the  feet  of  the 
power  that  had  seized  half  the  land,  and  proclaimed  its 
independence  of  the  United  States.  Eighteen  hundred  and 
sixty-eight  saw  that  power  destroyed,  its  foundation  abol- 
ished, its  rulers  fugitives,  its  slaves  rulers,  and  one,  at  the 
hour  of  her  downfall,  unknown  of  men,  put  by  the  popular 
voice  at  the  head  of  the  government,  while  all  the  world 
acknowledged  him  the  first  general  of  his  age.  Great  and 
mighty  are  Thy  works,  Lord  God  Almighty ! 

These  religious  orations,  as  they  should  properly  be  called, 
cover  this  field  of  the  long  controversy.  They  rise  and  fall 
with  the  tide  of  national  feeling,  and  thus  the  more  faith- 
fully photograph  their  times.  Being  delivered  at  different 
places,  and  upon  one  general  theme,  they  may  contain  some 
repetitions,  though  such  passages  have  been  omitted  as  far 
as  possible  consistent  with  the  symmetry  of  the  discourse. 


INTRODUCTOKY.  xi 

The  range  <  f  topics  is  not  confined  to  narrow,  local,  or  mo- 
mentary limits,  but  embraces  nearly  every  field  into  which 
the  controversy  legitimately  entered.  Objection  may  not 
be  improperly  offered,  in  this  colder  period  of  quiet  and 
victory,  to  occasional  expressions.  But  the  rifle  and  the 
cannon  grow  hot  in  the  battle,  and  the  cool  words  of  careful 
rhetoric  are  unsuited  to  the  fearful  crises  when  everlasting 
ruin  or  renown  wait  on  the  decree  of  the  moment.  If 
faithful  to  the  hour  of  their  utterance,  they  should  still 
burn,  like  lava,  long  ejected  from  the  blazing  volcano. 

More  than  half  the  contents  of  the  volume  have  been 
published  in  other  forms,  —  in  pamphlet  and  book,  in  the 
daily  and  weekly  newspaper,  in  the  monthly  and  quarterly. 
They  are  printed  in  the  order  of  the  national  events.  A 
few  speeches  and  letters,  that  have  a  unity  of  substance 
with  the  discourses,  are  inserted  in  their  appropriate  place. 
The  work  thus  presents  what  may  be  a  novelty  in  printed, 
yet  is  far  from  being  one  in  spoken  literature,  —  a  series  of 
speeches  that  shows  the  sympathy  and  oneness  of  the  pul- 
pit with  tlje  events,  political  and  military,  of  the  mightiest 
movements  of  God  in  this  generation. 

But  it  would  be  unjust  to  the  main  purpose  of  this  vol- 
ume to  declare  that  it  was  chiefly  a  recollection.  It  looks 
before  as  well  as  after ;  before  more  than  after.  Its  object 
is  not  to  gather  up  memorials  of  the  past,  but  to  enforce 
the  duties  of  the  future.  History,  that  simply  describes 
vanished  events,  is  as  purposeless  and  profitless  as  a  moral- 
less  tale.  All  history,  like  the  Bible,  should  describe  the 
past  only  to  sanctify  the  present  and  perfect  the  future. 
This  would  fail  of  its  object  if  it  left  the  reader  indifferent 


Xll  INTRODUCTORY. 

to  the  evil  that  still  possesses  too  largely  the  American 
heart.  Despite  the  mighty  panorama  of  divine  events  that 
has  passed  before  this  people,  their  hearts  are  hardened 
toward  those  for  whom  God  has  wrought  such  great  deliv- 
erance. We  are  still  cursed  with  a  curse,  even  this  whole 
nation.  Chattel  slavery  is  dead.  Political  slavery  is  nearly 
at  an  end.  Social  slavery  still  prevails.  Trade  yet  shuts 
its  gates  against  the  aspiring  and  competent  youth  of  this 
complexion.  Pulpits  yet  bar  their  doors  to  the  accredited 
and  popular  ministers  of  Jesus  Christ  as  their  regular  pas- 
tors. Society  too  generally  abhors  their  companionship. 
Aversion  thus  defiles  the  whole  national  heart. 

The  victims  of  our  contempt  feel  the  yoke  of  bondage 
with  which  we  still  burden  their  souls.  The  liberties  they 
have  won  only  make  these  chains  the  more  galling.  Not 
until  every  such  fetter  is  broken  will  ISod's  controversy 
with  America  come  to  an  end.  To  their  removal  these 
pages  are  consecrated.  The  past  is  past ;  the  future  beck- 
o'ns  us.  The  words  that  urged  to  duties  done,  call  to  the 
discharge  of  duties  that  must  be  done.  May  this  crown  be 
won  and  worn  by  the  American  people.  They  only  need 
to  conquer  this  prejudice,  to  b.ecome  the  model  and  the 
inspiration  of  all  the  nations  of  the  earth.  May  Church, 
State,  and  Society,  in  all  their  life,  speedily  reveal  the  per- 
fect cleansing  of  the  American  heart  from  the  unbrotherly 
distinction  of  man  from  man.  May  the  Father  and  Brother 
of  all  men,  who  has  created  them  in  His  image,  and  seeks 
their  unification  in  His  grace  and  nature,  hasten  the  ac- 
complishment of  this  most  desired  of  His  earthly  consum- 
mations. 


CONTENTS. 


I.  THE  HIGHER  LAW. 

Delivered  at  Amenia,  New  York,  November,  1850,  on  the  occasion 
of  the  Passage  of  the  Fugitive  Slave  Bill, Page    1 

"  Render  unto  Ccesar  the  things  that  are  Ccesars's  ;  and  unto  God  the 
things  that  are  God's."  —  Matthew  xxi.  12. 

ARGUMENT.  —  The  need  of  examination  of  the  principles  of  action,  especially 
when  these  principles  are  in. controversy.  The  divided  duty  before  every  citizen  of 
the  Free  States ;  loyalty  to  country  or  to  conscience.  On  what  rests  the  obligation  to 
obey  the  State.  I.  Man  the  subject  of  law.  1.  Distinction  in  the  kind  and  authority 
of  law.  Law  of  body  and  of  spirit;  of  sensibilities,  mind,  and  moral  being.  The 
lower  authoritative  only,  when  not  hostile  to  the  higher.  If  man  were  holy,  all  his 
nature  would  work  symmetrically.  Sin  the  disturber  of  this  harmony.  2.  The  civil 
government  a  creature  of  the  social  nature  of  man.  It  must  therefore  by  virtue  of 
its  origin  be  in  subjection  to  conscience,  or  the  higher  nature,  if  any  conflict  arises. 
II.  How  shall  we  know  the  relations  of  the  human  laws  to  the  law  of  God  ?  By 
Conscience,  by  Providence,  by  the  Scriptures.  How  act  if  such  a  decree  is  thus  de- 
cided to  be  wrong  ?  Refuse  to  cooperate  in  its  enforcement.  Refuse  to  desist  from 
duties  it  forbids.  Cast  all  our  influence  against  it.  III.  Application  to  the  Fugitive 
Slave  Bill.  It  comes  from  the  State.  Slavery,  its  nature;  condemned  by  instincts, 
conscience,  Providence,  and  the  Bible.  Our  duty,  to  refuse  obedience;  to  befriend 
these  whom  it  outlaws,  and  to  oppose  it  by  voice  and  vote.  IV.  The  plea  of  con- 
stitutional protection.  The  Constitution  a  creature  of  civil  government,  and  there- 
fore of  the  social  nature.  It  is  consequently  subject  like  that  nature  to  the  moral 
sentiments.  Its  words  allow  liberty  not  slavery.  Our  trust  in  Christ  not  the  Con- 
sUtution.  Encouragements  in  the  conflict.  No  slave  hunters  in  our  borders. 

(xiii) 


XIV  CONTENTS. 

II.  THE  DEATH  OF  FREEDOM. 

Delivered  at  Wilbraham,  Massachusetts,  May  25, 1854,  on  the  occa- 
sion of  the  Passage  of  the  Nebraska  Bill, 33 

"  The  beauty  of  Israel  is  slain  upon  thy  high  places."  —  2  Samuel  i.  19. 

"  And  Saul  was  consenting  unto  his  death."  —  Acts  viii.  1. 

"  There  was  darkness  over  all  the  land."  —  Matthew  xxviii.  45. 

ARGUMENT.  —  The  nation  around  the  corpse  of  Freedom.  I.  How  was  it  slain  ? 
By  slow  poison.  By  allowing  the  Constitution  to  recognize  slavery;  passing  the 
first  Fugitive  Slave  Bill ;  enacting  the  Missouri  Compromise ;  demanding  Texas ; 
enacting  the  second  Fugitive  Slave  Bill.  Contrary  movements.  Present  condition 
of  America;  the  propagandist  of  slavery.  II.  Our  future.  Signs  of  resurrection; 
opposition  in  Congress  of  the  party  that  enacted  it;  public  sentiment;  organized 
societies ;  the  Church ;  increased  manumission.  III.  Need  of  humiliation  and  con- 
fession; of  political  combination  against  it;  of  prayer. 

III.    THE   STATE   STRUCK  DOWN. 

Delivered  at  Westfield,  Massachusetts,  June  11,  1856,  on  the  oc- 
casion of  the  assault  upon  Charles  Sumner, 57 

"  But  those  husbandmen  said  among  themselves,  This  is  the  heir; 
come,  let  us  kill  him,  and  the  inheritance  shall  be  ours."  —  Mark  xii.  7. 

ARGUMENT.  —  Why  Christ  suffered ;  how  His  suffering  disciples  participate  in 
His  experience,  though  falling  infinitely  below  it.  The  position  of  this  sufferer  as 
compared  with  previous  martyrs.  Not  himself  assailed  but  his  State,  and  her  Ideas, 
organized  and  regnant.  His  assailant  not  a  man  but  an  Idea,  organized  and  deter- 
mined on  the  supremacy  I.  Our  guilt.  History  of  its  progress.  II.  Our  repentance. 
How  to  be  established.  1.  By  penitence.  2.  Brotherly  feeling  toward  the  slave. 
3.  Resumption  of  stolen  Kansas.  4.  The  transfer  of  the  government  to  the  side  of 
liberty.  III.  Failure  destroys  liberty  or  compels  civil  war. 

IV.    THE  NATIONAL  MIDNIGHT. 

Delivered  at  Westfield,  Massachusetts,  November  16,  1856,  on  the 
occasion  of  the  election  of  James  Buchanan  to  the  Presidency,     .  87 

"  And  ^vhen  I  looked,  behold  a  hand  was  sent  unto  me  ;  and  lo,  a  roll 
of  a  book  was  therein  ;  and  he  spread  it  before  me  ;  and  it  was  written 
within  and  without ;  and  there  was  written  therein  lamentations,  and 
mourning,  and  u-oe."  —  Ezekiel  ii.  9,  10. 


CONTENTS.  XV 

A  IGUMENT.  —  The  right  and  duty  of  ministerial  utterance  on  national  ques- 
tions proved  from  Bible  history  and  orders.  Especial  obligations  in  view  of 
the  enormity  of  the  national  transgression.  I.  What  has  triumphed  ?  1.  Not  the 
Democratic  party.  2.  Slavery.  Study  this  victor;  trace  its  power  in  a  human  being 
from  birth  to  death.  Robbed  of  name,  of  parents,  of  education,  of  property,  of 
religion.  What  shall  the  end  be  if  the  victors  retain  their  strength  ?  Enslave- 
ment of  Kansas;  because  of  their  purpose,  their  necessity,  and  the  fact  that  this  is 
the  center  of  the  conflict.  This  won,  all  is.  2.  Extension  of  slavery  to  Oregon. 
3.  Annexation  of  Cuba  and  Central  America  as  slave  States.  4.  Reopening  of  the 
Foreign  Slave  Trade.  5.  Suppression  of  freedom  of  speech,  everywhere.  0.  Adjudg- 
ing slaves  as  property  everywhere.  Slavery  must  make  these  attempts.  It  must 
advance  or  die.  III.  What  has  caused  the  defeat  ?  1.  No  real  national  sympathy 
with  the  slave.  2.  No  earnest  prayers  for  the  victory  of  Freedom.  3.  More  anxious 
to  conquer  a  party  than  to  abolish  slavery.  IV.  Encouragements.  None  in  the 
ruling  party.  1.  First  organized  success  of  political  anti-slavery  in  a  single  State. 

2.  A  stimulant  to  friends  of  liberty  in  the  slave  States  to  organize  against  slavery. 

3.  The  growth  of  the  religious  sentiment. 


V.    CASTE  THE  CORNER-STONE   OF  AMERICAN 
SLAVERY. 

Delivered  on  the  occasion  of  the  State  Fast,  at  Wilbraham,  Mas- 
sachusetts, in  1854,  and  at  Roxbury,  Massachusetts,  in  1858;  also 
delivered  at  the  Forsyth  Street  Methodist  Episcopal  Church, 
New  York, ' 129 

"  We  are  verily  guilty  concerning  our  brother."  —  Genesis  xlii.  21. 

ARGUMENT.  —  Foundation  for  American  Slavery.  I.  Not  in  man  as  man,  but  in 
his  color  or  origin.  Scripture  stolen  to  array  an  idol.  This  color  is  declared  to  be 
a  mark  of  degradation,  and  separation.  II.  This  feeling,  1.  General.  2.  Deep- 
rooted.  3.  Unnatural.  Because,  (1.)  Not  towards  any  other  class  of  men.  (2).  They 
have  the  gifts  of  music,  manners,  the  culinary  art,  aptness  of  imitation,  wit  and 
humor,  patience,  and  sunniness  of  temper.  (3.)  No  repugnance  to  this  color,  as  seen 
everywhere  else  than  in  America.  (4.)  No  disunity  in  spiritual  nature.  (5).  Caused 
by  social  condition.  (0.)  Contrary  to  the  Scriptures.  4.  The  feeling  is  the  chief 
bulwark  of  American  slavery.  South  could  not  resist  the  North  were  she  free  from 
this  prejudice.  III.  How  shall  it  be  cured  ?  1.  Cease  to  dwell  on  the  distinction  of 
color.  2.  Welcome  those  of  this  hue  to  your  society.  3.  Encourage  them  to  enter 
all  branches  of  trade.  IV.  Result,  intermarriage;  its  right  and  fitness.  True  mar- 
riage. Shakespeare's  foresight  and  courage.  Othello  and  Desdemona. 


xvi  CONTENTS. 

VI.    THE   BEGINNING   OF   THE   END. 

Delivered  at  Cambridge,  Massachusetts,  November  6,  1859,  on  the 
occasion  of  the  capture  of  Captain  John  Brown, 152 

"  Surely  oppression  maketh  a  wise  man  mad."  —  Eccl.  vii.  7. 

."  I  am  not  mad,  most  noble  Festus."  —  Acts  xxvi.  25. 

"  So  I  returned,  and  considered  all  the  oppressions  that  are  done 
under  the  sun :  and  behold,  the  tears  of  such  as  were  oppressed,  and  they 
had  no  comforter  ;  and  on  the  side  of  their  oppressors  there  was  power, 
but  they  had  no  comforter.  Wherefore  I  praised  the  dead  which  are 
already  dead,  more  than  the  living  which  are  yet  alive." —  Eccl.  iv.  1, 2. 

ARGUMENT.  —  Opening  of  a  new  act.  Its  influence.  Its  purport  and  effect.  The 
beginning  of  the  end.  It  has  taught  the  slaveholder  his  weakness.  It  has  strength- 
ened the  heart  of  the  slave.  His  right  to  liberty,  even  through  blood.  It  will  tend 
to  unite  us  to  our  enslaved  brethren ;  stimulate  all  peaceful  modes  of  assault  on 
slavery ;  abate  the  haughty  assumptions  of  the  slave  power.  The  benefit  of  his 
death,  if  he  dies.  Honors  the  American  scaffold,  as  Vane,  Russell,  and  Sidney  did 
England's.  His  future  fame. 

VII.    THE  MAKTYK. 

Address  on  the  occasion  of  the  execution  of  John  Brown,  December 
2,  1859, 169 

ARGUMENT.  —  Anew  date  in  American  Annals.  A  national  day  in  character  and 
Interest.  The  righteousness  of  his  deed.  His  right  to  interfere  to  save  his  fellow- 
men.  Its  wisdom.  He  wins  the  fight  in  his  dying.  The  slayer  slain. 

VIII.    TE   DEUM  LAUDAMUS. 

Delivered  at  Cambridge,  November  11,  1860,  on  the  occasion  of 
electing  Abraham  Lincoln  to  the  Presidency,      ......  177 

"  /  will  sing  unto  the  Lord,  for  he  hath  triumphed  gloriously.  The 
horse  and  his  rider  hath  He  thrown  into  the  sea."  —  Exodus  xv.  1. 

"  But  promotion  cometh  neither  from  the  east,  nor  from  the  west,  nor 
from  the  south.  But  God  is  judge:  He  putteth  down  one,  and  setteth 
up  another"  —  Ps.  Ixxv.  6,  7. 

"  Jesus  saith  unto  them,  Did  ye  never  read  in  the  Scriptures,  the  Stone 
which  the  builders  rejected,  the  same  is  become  the  head  of  the  corner  ; 
This  is  the  Lord's  doing,  and  it  is  marvelous  in  our  eyes.  —  Matt.  xxi.  42. 


CONTENTS.  xvii 

ARGUMENT.  —  Difference  between  this  year  and  last.  The  conflict.  One  ques- 
tion, Slavery  or  Liberty.  I.  Cause.  1.  The  growth  of  conscience  as  to  the  nature 
and  effects  of  slavery.  Begun  in  colonial  life,  developed  in  the  Revolutionary  era, 
but  postponed  because  of  the  pressure  of  another  duty.  Decline  in  the  post-revolu- 
tionary period.  Revived  under  Garrison.  2.  Fear  of  the  slave  power.  II.  Con- 
sequences.of  this  victory.  1.  It  will  suppress  efforts  to  extend  slavery.  2.  Sets  us 
right  before  the  world.  3.  Insures  the  speedy  abolition  of  slavery.  III.  Progress 
of  this  work;  its  certain  consummation.  Future  blessed  condition  of  the  free 
South. 

IX.    LETTERS  FROM  CAMP. 

Written  from  the  army  at  Washington,  the  Relay  House,  and  Balti- 
more, during  the  first  three  months  of  the  war, 213 

I.  To  ARMS.  —  The  Gathering  of  th£  States.  A  war  night  in  Faneuil  Hall.  First 
war  Sunday.  Opening  the  way  to  the  Capitol.  Camp  in  the  Capitol.  Camp  at  the 
Relay.  Smoke  before  the  Fire.  II.  SLAVERY  DYING.  The  Look  of  the  Land.  How 
Slaves  Talk.  The  Carrolton  Manor.  A  Slave  Pen.  A  Rational  Beast  and  his  Pos- 
sibilities. Arlington  when  first  Captured.  A  very  Tender  Conscience.  III.  PROFIT 

AND  LOSS  AFTER  BULL  RUN. 

X.    THE  DAY  DAWNS. 

Delivered  at  Newark,  New  Jersey,  March  9,  1862,  on  the  occasion 
of  the  first  Abolition  Proclamation, 269 

"  The  year  of  my  redeemed  is  come"  —  Isaiah  Ixiii.  4. 

ARGUMENT.  —  I.  Effects  of  this  proclamation  at  home  and  abroad.  The  begin- 
ning of  this  movement  at  Boston.  Opposition.  War.  II.  Results  of  this  pro- 
clamation. 1.  Erect  the  national  mind  on  the  nature  of  slavery.  2.  Rob  the  slave 
power  of  foreign  support.  3.  Encourage  the  slave.  4.  Unify  the  Republic.  5.  Sub- 
due the  earth  to  liberty. 

XI.    ENGLAND    AND   AMERICA. 

Letter  to  the  London  Watchman,  written  from  Paris,  July  4,  1862,  .  291 

ARGUMENT.  —  Interest  of  England  in  the  American  war.  Ignorance  of  its  origin 
and  aims.  Her  conflict  of  ideas  with  America.  Why  America  did  not  abolish  slavery 
at  the  beginning  of  the  war.  The  rebellion  struck  at  the  Union,  and  the  Union 
must  be  defended.  England  never  extirpates  its  cause  when  suppressing  a  rebel- 
lion. Ireland.  Sepoys.  The  United  States  devoted  to  Freedom.  Her  struggle  for 
Democracy  against  monarchical  ideas.  Difficulty  of  European  peoples  to  under- 
stand this  struggle.  They  are  in  a  lower  plane  of  civil  life.  America  fighting  for 
6 


xviii  .      CONTENTS. 

the  liberties  of  the  world.  European  kingdoms  to  become  European  states.  The 
British  People  versus  British  Government.  America  no  quarrel  with  crowned 
lu'uds  as  such.  The  advent  of  British  democracy ;  its  conflicts  and  victory.  The 
ultimate  Democratic  oneness  of  England  and  America. 


XII.    THE   STATE  A   CHRISTIAN  BROTHERHOOD. 

Delivered  before  the  New  England  Conference  of  the  Methodist 
Episcopal  Church,  at  the  High  Street  Church,  Charlestown,  Mas- 
sachusetts, on  the  occasion  of  the  annual  State  Fast,  April  27, 
1863, 317 

"  Let  us  keep  the  feast,  not  with  old  leaven,  neither  with  the  leaven  of 
malice  and  wickedness,  but  with  the  unleavened  bread  of  sincerity  and 
truth.  —  Cor.  v.  8. 

"Arise;  shine."  —  Isa.  Ix.  1. 

"  All  nations  shall  call  you  blessed  ;  for  ye  shall  be  a  delightsome  land, 
saith  the  Lord  of  Hosts."  —  Mai.  iii.  12. 

ARGUMENT.  —  Conceit  of  nations  as  to  their  mission.  Ours.  I.  Universal  toler- 
ation with  acknowledgment  of  Christianity.  Difference  between  the  first  idea  and 
all  previous  national  usage.  In  Israel  faith  and  loyalty  one.  Christianity  con- 
quered Paganism  at  the  Milvian  bridge.  How  it  has  ruled  Europe  since.  Nowhere 
equality  of  faith  except  in  America.  French  Protestants;  English  Dissenters. 
Late  development  of  it  here.  Colonial  union  of  Church  and  State.  Evils  this 
toleration  breeds.  1.  Irreligion  of  public  men.  2.  Forbids  all  pulpit  utterance  upon 
national  sins.  Difference  between  this  course  and  previous  support  of  the  govern- 
ment by  the  clergy.  Charles  Martel ;  Cromwell ;  Geneva.  It  brought  about  the 
alliance  of  slavery  and  the  Southern  Church.  It  bred  infidelity.  Christianity  must 
be  acknowledged  as  the  American  faith.  II.  The  second  mission  of  America  is  to 
exhibit  the  fraternity  of  man.  Our  detestation  of  this  demand.  Our  duty,  to  ex- 
punge the  word  "  colored  "  from  the  Church;  to  give  the  man  of  color  access  to 
every  field  of  effort.  Its  obligation  and  real  popularity.  Peter's  prejudice;  how 
cured.  Lybica  Sybilla  and  Sojourner  Truth.  The  Church  the  redeemer  of  society. 
Each  must  esteem  the  other  better  than  himself.  The  Brahmin  taught. 


XIII.    THE   CHURCH   AND   THE   NEGRO, 

An  address  delivered  before  the  Church  Anti-Slavery  Society  at 
Tremont  Temple,  June  10,  18G3 361 

AUGUJIENT.  —  The  unity  of  Abierican  and  Hebrew  abolition.    God's  decree  of 
liberty  for  Israel.    His  like  decree  to  them  against  caste.    The  position  of  the  New 


CONTENTS.  xix 

Testament  against  slavery.  Its  Gentile  church,  like  the  Mosaic,  composed  largely 
of  slaves.  The  European  church  abolished  slavery.  The  mixed  and  weak  position 
of  the  American  church  on  this  sin.  Its  duty  now  to  exhibit  penitence,  by  abolish- 
ing the  root  of  slavery,  caste.  The  absurdity  of  this  feeling. 


XIV.    THE  WAK  AND  THE  MILLENNIUM. 
Delivered  in  Boston,  on  Thanksgiving  Day,  November  26,  18G3,  .  373 

"  They  shall  make  war  with  the  Lamb,  and  the  Lamb  shall  overcome 
them."  —  Revelation  xvii.  14. 

ARGUMENT.  —  What  is  the  Millennium  ?  The  triumph  of  Christ  over  Satan.  Its 
progress  in  the  earlier  ages,  in  the  times  of,  and  immediately  after,  Christ.  It 
has  destroyed  idolatry,  or  man's  disunion  with  God.  It  must  destroy  man's  dis- 
union from  man.  The  forms  of  that  disunion  here  contending  against  Christianity. 
Chattel  slavery  and  servility  in  civil  governments.  Artificial  social  barriers  must 
be  removed  and  Man  unified.  The  struggle  to  work  out  these  ends  in  our  war. 
Their  happy  result.  The  influence  of  our  success  upon  the  advancement  of  the 
world.  The  victories  of  Lookout  Mountain  and  Missionary  Ridge. 

XV.    WHY  GRANT  WILL   SUCCEED. 

Delivered  in  Boston,  May  15,  1864,  on  the  occasion  of  General 
Grant's  Advance  on  Richmond, 393 

"  And  the  Lord  said  unto  Joshua,  Fear  not,  neither  be  thou  dismayed  ; 
take  all  the  people  of  war  with  thee,  and  arise,  go  up  to  Ai :  see,  I  have 
given  into  thy  hand  the  king  of  Ai,  and  his  people,  and  his  city,  and  his 
land."  —  Joshua  viii.  1. 

ARGUMENT.  —  The  excitement  of  the  hour.  Propriety  of  dwelling  upon  it.  God 
in  the  battles  going  forward.  Why  Joshua  was  defeated.  Why  we.  How  he 
repented  and  conquered.  How  we  are  repenting  and  shall  therefore  conquer. 
McClellan's  refusal  to  let  the  soldiers  hear  anti-slavery  songs  insured  his  over- 
throw. The  later  failures  because  we  would  not  treat  all  our  soldiers  equally. 
Grant  refuses  to  advance  on  Richmond  until  their  pay  is  equalized.  Congress 
delays,  and  then  refuses  to  give  colored  soldiers  the  same  pay  as  white  except  they 
had  been  born  free.  The  President  shoots  one  for  mutiny  who  refuses  to  serve  on 
other  conditions  than  those  under  which  he  had  enlisted.  Grant  will  not  stir  till 
this  change  is  effected.  The  nation  of  no  consequence  to  God  unless  it  obf  ys  His 
will.  This  obedience  wins  His  approval  and  insures  our  victory. 


XX  CONTENTS. 

XVI.  THREE  SUMMERS  OF  WAR:  THE  REVOLUTION  AND 
THE  REBELLION. 

Delivered  in  Boston,  July  4,  1864, 407 

"  TiYhosc  are  the  fathers."  —  Romans  ix.  5. 

ARGUMENT.  —  Comparing  the  Revolution  and  Rebellion  at  the  end  of  three  years. 
1.  Military.  How  the  Revolution  stood ;  its  disasters  and  depressions.  Our  posi- 
tion; its  superiority.  2.  Moral.  Attempt  to  seduce  the  leaders  to  return  to  the 
British  crown.  Its  failure.  Our  progress  in  Liberty  and  Union.  3.  Financial. 
The  downfall  of  Continental  paper.  Extravagance  of  the  people.  4.  Other  troubles. 
Mutiny.  Sectional  prejudices.  Feuds  among  the  officers.  Our  superiority  in  all 
these  respects.  The  likeness  of  the  causes  for  which  we  are  contending. 

XVII.    THE   CRISIS   HOUR. 
Delivered  in  Boston,  on  the  National  Fast,  August  4,  1864,  .     .     .  421 

"  Turn  ye,  turn  ye,  from  your  evil  ways :  for  why  will  ye  die,  0  house 
of  Israel  ?  "  —  Ezekiel  xxxiii.  11. 

ARGUMENT.  —  The  length  and  bloodiness  of  the  war.  The  same  number  of 
combatants  as  of  slaves.  The  refusal  of  Congress  and  the  President  to  confess  the 
national  sin.  1.  Our  perils.  "We  may  fail.  Because  we  are  false  to  Christ  as  a  peo- 
ple. The  national  impiety.  Because  we  are  false  to  our  Democratic  pretensions,  in 
despising  our  fellow-men.  2.  Our  duties.  Prayer.  Conformity  of  our  acts  with 
our  professions.  Support  the  church  and  nation.  3.  Encouragements.  Slavery 
practically  dead.  The  despised  slave  wonderfully  uplifted.  Our  future  success 
certain. 

XVIII.    THE   WORLD   WAR:   ARISTOCRACY  AND  DEMOC- 
RACY. 

Delivered  in  Boston,  on  the  occasion  of  the  Annual  State  Fast, 
April  4,  1864, 439 

"  Behold,  this  One  is  set  for  the  fall  and  the  rising  again  of  many." 
—  Lukeii.  34. 

ARGUMENT.  —  America  at  war  with  Europe  from  the  beginning  of  her  Revolu- 
tion. Inconsistency  in  expecting  sympathy  and  aid  from  England  and  France. 
I.  Three  ideas  born  into  human  society  with  the  American  nation.  1.  A  successful 


CONTENTS.  xxi 

revolution  in  favor  of  human  rights.  All  other  successful  revolutions  only  con- 
cerned the  people  that  accomplished  them.  America  felt  that  she  was  fighting  for 
the  world.  2.  Formation  of  colonies  into  separate  and  semi-sovereign  States. 
3.  Organizing  of  States  into  a  Federal  Union.  II.  The  effect  of  this  work  on  Eu- 
rope. It  brought  forth  the  French  Revolution,  and  awakened  like  spirit  every- 
where. III.  Why  it  failed.  Because  of  the  hostility  of  the  priesthood,  the  alliance 
of  kings,  offensive  and  defensive,  and  our  Neutrality:  the  last  was  the  chief  cause 
of  its  failure.  The  error  of  Washington.  Its  results;  developed  slavery,  caused 
indifference  to  European  struggles,  and  created  foreign  Neutrality  against  our- 
selves. IV.  The  march  of  our  Ideas.  How  Britain  preserved  her  institutions 
against  them:  by  war  with  France;  by  suppressing  freedom  of  speech.  V.  The 
present  state  of  the  war.  Alliance  against  America.  England's  leadership  in 
it.  Wherefore.  VI.  Future  of  Europe.  Democratic  uprisings.  Poland,  Italy, 
and  Greece  assuming  the  American  form;  equal  rights  for  all,  Free  States,  and 
Federal  Union.  Conflicts  preliminary  to  its  success.  VII.  Impediments  being 
removed.  European  Democrats  making  common  cause.  The  Church  beginning  to 
cooperate.  America  must  remove  the  last  obstacle,  and  openly  befriend  their 
struggling  nationalities. 

XIX.    THE   END   NEAR. 

Delivered  in  Boston,  September  11,  1864,  on  the  occasion  of  the 
Capture  of  Atlanta, 473 

"  The  morning  cometh."  —  Isaiah  xxi.  12. 

"  Through  the  tender  mercy  of  our  God,  whereby  the  Day-spring  from 
on  high  hath  visited  vis."  —  Luke  i.  78. 

ARGUMENT.  —  The  waning  condition  of  "  the  Confederacy."  Analogy  of  a  like 
prostration  of  the  North.  Our  duty;  to  stand  firmly  ;  to  support  the  government  in 
the  present  national  Presidential  struggle  at  the  polls;  to  preach  and  practice  the 
whole  truth  involved  in  this  conflict. 

XX.    THE   WONDERFUL  YEAR. 

Delivered  in  Boston,  January  1,  1865, 489 

"  The  year  of  the  right  hand  of  the  Most  High"  —  Ps.  Ixxiii.  11. 

ARGUMENT.  —  England's  Annus  Mirdbilis,  just  two  hundred  years  ago  save  one. 
The  superiority  of  America's.  I.  Our  military  progress  during  the  year.  II.  Our 
Political  Contrast  of  this  election  and  that  of  1804'.  1.  In  the  circumstances  under 
which  it  was  fought.  (1.)  Slavery  a  unit  and  universal  in  the  South  then;  ceased 
now.  No  sale  of  men  and  women.  No  separation.  Milder  treatment.  (2.)  Ir  the 
freedom  of  the  election.  (3.)  In  the  advanced  principles  for  which  it  fought.  No 


xxii  CONTENTS. 

extension  of  slavery  its  motto  then;  no  existence  of  it  now.  2.  It  established 
three  essential  ideas:  Union;  how  mightily  this  sentiment  has  grown  and  pre- 
vailed. 3.  Liberty,  its  progress  more  vital  and  more  marvellous.  Democracy,  or 
the  equality  of  the  rights  of  all  men.  The  Supreme  Court  then  and  now.  4.  Con- 
sequences. Liberation  of  Europe.  Fraternization  of  America.  5.  Duties.  Aboli- 
tion of  all  prejudices.  Granting  to  all,  civil  equality  and  fraternity.  The  church 
should  grow  in  this  grace.  The  summons  aud  blessing  of  God. 

XXI.  THE  VIAL  POURED  OUT  ON  THE  SEAT  OF  THE  BEAST. 

Delivered  in  Boston,  March  5,  18G5,  on  the  occasion  of  the  Fall  of 
Charleston, 517 

"And  the  fifth  angel  poured  out  his  vial  upon  the  seat  of  the  beast ; 
and  his  kingdom  was  full  of  darkness  ;  and  they  gnau-ed  their  tongues 
for  pain,  and  blasphemed  the  God  of  heaven  because  of  their  sores,  and 
repented  not  of  their  deeds."  —  Revelation  xvi.  10,  11. 

ARGUMENT.  —  Extreme  contrasts  in  the  calls  of  the  government  and  the  war  to 
the  sanctuary;  sorrowful,  joyful.  The  character  of  this  summons.  Draw  near  to 
this  burning  and  consider.  I.  The  Sin.  Why  the  Seat  of  the  Beast.  How  far  its 
atrocities  exceeded  those  of  any  other  spot  in  Christendom.  Paris,  London,  Rome. 
The  condition  of  the  majority  of  the  people  of  Charleston.  Chief  in  this  sin  because 
she  supported  it  by  law,  society,  and  religion ;  because  she  saw  first  and  sought 
most  the  destruction  of  Abolitionism.  II.  Her  Punishment.  The  Vial  poured  out. 
Compared  with  New  Orleans,  Nashville,  Savannah,  all  other  cities.  Even  Richmond 
suffers  less.  III.  The  instrument  by  which  her  punishment  is  effected.  Her  own 
hand  and  her  own  slaves.  The  soldiers  burned  her,  her  slaves  rule  her.  IV.  Les- 
sons. 1.  No  greatness  aught  against  God.  2.  The  earth  to  be  regenerated. 
Charleston  to  be  renewed  in  righteousness.  3.  God  Impartial.  If  He  spares  not 
them,  not  us.  Unless  we  repent  we  shall  all  likewise  perish.  V.  Future  duties 
beckon  us.  This  victory  but  a  beacon.  Will  we  follow  ? 

XXII.    JEFFERSON   DAVIS   AND   PHARAOH. 

Delivered  in  Boston,  April  9,  18G5,  on  the  occasion  of  the  Flight  of 
Jefferson  Davis  from  Richmond, 529 

"  Livery  deed  forthis  cause  have  I  raised  thee  up,  for  to  show  in  thee 
My  power  ;  and  that  My  name  may  be  declared  throughout  all  the  earth." 
—  Ex.  ix.  16. 

ARGUMENT.  —  Historic  parallels.  Plutarch's  :  Napoleon  and  Caesar.  Propriety 
of  considering  this  analogy.  The  victory  ours.  Proper  study  of  the  war  from  the 


CONTENTS.  xxiii 

side  of  God,  that  is  from  the  side  of  the  slave.  Thus  we  study  the  Hebrew  eman- 
cipation; thus  will  the  future  this.  What  stood  in  the  way  of  emancipation? 
1.  The  words  and  construction  of  the  Constitution.  2.  Aversion  of  the  North  to 
Abolitionism.  3.  The  purpose  of  the  South  to  prevent  it.  The  first  two  over- 
come by  allowing-  the  last  to  become  strong.  This  strengthened  itself  in  the  char- 
acter of  Jefferson  Davis.  I.  Resemblance  between  him  and  Pharaoh.  1.  In  free- 
dom of  action.  No  compulsion  on  either.  2.  In  character.  (1.)  Clear  perception 
of  the  effect  of  any  concession.  (2.)  Steadiness  of  purpose.  Resistance  of  begin- 
nings to  submission.  (3.)  Power  to  develop  like  strength  in  others.  3.  In  work. 
(1.)  Pharaoh  only  known  from  his  connection  with  emancipation,  so  will  Davis 
dnly  be  known.  (2.)  How  each  resisted  in  every  step  of  the  conflict.  4.  In  fate, 
Pharaoh  perished  in  power  if  not  in  life;  so  will  Davis  sink  into  weakness  and 
obscurity.  II.  Why  did  God  raise  him  up  ?  1.  To  release  enslaved  millions.  2.  To 
give  them  especial  honor.  3.  To  unite  all  mankind  in  one. 


XXIII.    THE   UNITER  AND   LIBERATOR   OF   AMERICA. 

Delivered  in  Boston,  April  23,  1865,  on  the  occasion  of  the  Death  of 
Abraham  Lincoln, 551 

"  Thy  gentleness  hath  made  me  great" —  Ps.  xviii.  35. 

"  He  saved  others,  himself  he  cannot  save."  —  Matt,  xxvii.  42. 

"All  nations  shall  call  him  blessed."  —  Ps.  Ixxii.  17. 

ARGUMENT.  —  National  agony  of  sorrow.  I.  The  character  of  Abraham  Lincoln. 
1.  Honesty.  2.  Guilelessness.  3.  Impartiality  of  judgment.  4.  No  step  back- 
ward. 5.  Playfulness.  6.  Integrity.  7.  Love.  Repose  of  the  nation  in  his  love. 
This  causes  the  present  anguish  of  heart.  II.  His  career.  Two  obstacles  to  be 
overcome,  Disunion  and  Slavery.  The  war  of  the  elements.  His  fitness  for  uniting 
the  North.  His  conciliatory  nature  and  policy  prevented  Northern  disruption, 
and  divided  the  border.  His  great  act.  His  murderer  not  Booth,  not  Lee  ;  a 
greater  criminal  than  both,  Slavery.  How  shall  his  death  be  avenged?  By  greater 
faithfulness  to  the  cause  for  which  lie  died.  His  growing- faithfulness.  His  dying 
words  and  deeds.  Last  inaugural.  Entry  into  Richmond.  His  work  done.  Ours 
before  us.  Obedience  to  highest  duties  the  only  imitation  of  him.  Will  we  thus 
lament  and  follow  him  ? 


XXIV.    PEACE:   HER  GIFTS   AND   DEMANDS. 
Delivered  in  Boston,  July  9,  1865, 581 

"  They  are  dead  that  sought  the  young  Cliild's  life"  —  Matthew  ii.  20. 
"  The  Lord  gave  them  rest  round  about,  according  to  all  that  He  sn-are 


xxiv  CONTENTS. 

unto  their  fathers  ;  and  there  stood  not  a  man  of  all  their  enemies  "before 
them, ;  the  Lord  delivered  all  their  enemies  into  their  hand.  There  failed 
not  aught  of  any  good  thing  which  the  Lord  had  spoken  unto  the  house 
of  Israel ;  all  came  to  pass."  —  Joshua  xxi.  43-45. 

ARGUMENT.—  The  first  Fourth  of  July  after  the  Revolution  and  this;  analogy. 
The  national  joy.  I.  Blessings  of  this  peace.  1.  Peace  itself.  Horrors  of  war;  on 
the  field;  to  the  maimed  soldiers;  to  the  bereaved.  2.  It  restores  the  supremacy 
of  the  law.  3.  Bestows  liberty.  Might  have  been  without  liberty.  Contrast  with 
the  last  five  anniversaries  of  Independence.  II.  Demands.  The  abolition  of  social 
and  political  slavery.  The  outer  fetters  fallen.  What  those  were.  Extract  from 
auction  bills  of  the  Slave  Mart  of  Charleston.  Just  punishment  of  God.  Past  prog- 
ress assures  the  future  unity  of  the  race.  All  lands  coming  to  America.  All  here 
may  be  regenerated. 

XXV.  AMERICA'S  PAST  AND  FUTURE. 

Delivered  on  Thanksgiving  Day,  November  26,  1868,  at  Medford, 
Massachusetts,  on  the  occasion  of  the  Election  of  President 
Grant, 603 

"  To-morrow  shall  lie  as  this  day',  and  much  more  abundant."  — 
Isaiah  Ivi.  12. 

ABGUMENT.  —  The  conflict  of  Chaos  and  the  calm  of  Creation.  I.  Antiquity  of 
Slavery.  The  woman  the  slave  to  her  husband ;  the  other  children  to  the  first-born. 
Its  prevalence.  Judea  the  only  Free  State  when  Christ  came.  Her  fall.  The 
deliverance  of  Europe  from  it,  through  the  Church.  II.  Its  prevalence  outside  her 
territory  and  faith.  Rise  of  African  slavery.  How  it  reached  and  spread  in  America. 
Error  of  Columbus,  and  all  that  followed  him,  of  every  language  and  religion. 
III.  God's  controversy  with  it.  Corruption  of  Church  and  State.  Slow  renova- 
tion. Instruments  by  which  it  was  wrought  out.  Culmination  of  the  work  in 
war.  IV.  General  Grant;  his  foresight  of  the  greatness  of  the  struggle;  his  ob- 
scurity ;  his  military  genius ;  the  cause  he  served ;  saving  the  nation  and  destroy- 
ing slavery.  Advantage  over  all  other  generals  in  that  respect.  V.  Meaning  of  the 
election.  Order;  Safety;  Progress,  and  Perfection  in  political  and  social  liberty. 
Aversion  to  color  must  change  to  love.  Amalgamation  God's  work,  act,  and 
decree.  Signs  of  its  advent.  Happy  results  to  all  the  world  from  the  fraternity  of 
man  in  America.  Other  reforms.  Temperance.  Woman's  ballot.  The  glowing 
future.  Christ  over  all,  God  blessed  forever. 

NOTES, 631 


THE    HIGHER    LAW.* 


RENDER  THEREFORE  UNTO  CJJSAR  THE   THINGS  THAT  ARE  CAESAR'S, 

AND    UNTO    GOD    THE    THINGS    THAT    ARE    GOD'S."  Matt.  X\ti.  21. 


T  is  well  frequently  to  lay  bare  the  springs  of  our 
being,  to  examine  their  nature,  and  see  if  their 
'  present  movement   is    in  accordance  with    their 

original  design. 
This  is  especially  necessary  when  conflicting  sentiments 
obtain  respecting  a  course  of  action  which  we  are  required 
to  pursue.  When  we  cannot  remain  idle  spectators  of  a 
contest  which  is  raging  around  us,  but  from  the  orders  of 
leaders  in  the  battle  are  compelled  to  take  definite  posi- 
tions, then  it  is  our  solemn  duty  to  examine  the  nature  of 
these  commands,  that  we  may  see  whether  we  must  obey 
or  resist  them. 

Such  is  the  condition  in  which  every  person  is  placed 
throughout  the  Free  States.  The  government  of  the 
country  has  arrayed  its  mighty  strength  upon  the  side  of 
Slavery,  and  issues  its  mandate  to  all  the  people,  to  lend 

*  A  sermon  preached  at  Anienia,  New  York.  November,  1850,  on  the 
occasion  of  the  passage  of  the  Fugitive  Slave  Bill.  See  Note  I. 


2  THE   HIGHER   LAW. 

their  aid  in  its  defense.  The  conflict  between  the  eternal 
foes  of  freedom  and  slavery  has  by  this  act  changed  us 
from  unconcerned  spectators,  if  we  had  chosen  to  assume 
that  position,  into  actors,  and  requires  every  one  to  take 
his  place  under  one  of  the  hostile  banners.  If,  therefore, 
there  were  no  previous  claims  upon  our  feelings  of  brother- 
hood, we  cannot  avoid  considering  our  duties  under  this 
assertion  of  the  will  of  the  State. 

In  such  circumstances  it  is  our  highest  duty  to  examine 
the  Nature  and  Extent  of  the  Authority  of  Human  Govern- 
ment, and  to  see  if  the  late  decrees  of  our  nation  are  in 
agreement  or  hostility  with  its  delegated  rights. 

Man  is  created  subject  to  law.  Enactments  originating 
in  the  wisdom  of  God  control  every  faculty  of  body  and 
soul.  In  whatever  direction  he  seeks  activity,  he  finds  laws 
inducing  the  desire  and  limiting  its  gratification.  Around 
him  as  well  as  within  him  ever  operates  the  same  infinite 
energy  under  the  guidance  of  the  same  infinite  wisdom, 
cooperating  through  all  the  lower  orders  of  being  with  his 
highest  faculties,  or  by  the  same  obedient  officers  modifying 
or  suppressing  their  unhealthy  activity.  The  world  with- 
out us  is  our  servant  or  our  scourge,  according  as  we  are  the 
servants  or  enemies  of  God  within  us. 

But  while  there  is  no  portion  of  our  nature  free  from 
the  authority  of  law,  there  is  an  evident  distinction  in  the 
degree  of  this  authority.  As  a  being  intended  for  different 
states  of  existence,  and  for  different  duties  in  each  state, 
the  Divine  Lawgiver  must  assign  to  each  faculty  authority 
proportionate  to  its  original  design.  Each  is  allowed  full 
powers  within  its  own  borders,  with  restrictions  against  any 
intrusion  upon  the  rights  of  adjacent  faculties,  and  un- 
hesitating submission  to  the  Conscience,  the  governor  of  the 
whole  realm,  and  through  that  to  the  Creator  and  Proprietor 
of  All. 

The  laws  that  regulate  our  body  are  felt  to  be  inferior  to 


THE   FUGITIVE    SLAVE   BILL.  3 

those  which  control  the  soul.  Though  constructed  with 
measureless  skill,  and  acting-  under  impulses  of  divine  origin, 
the  body  is  only  a  servant  of  the  soul.  Its  mechanism, 
its  vitality,  its  appetites,  its  instincts  are  all  acknowledged 
to  be  subordinate  to  other  powers  which  inherit  it  for  a 
season,  and  which  can  mar  its  structure  or  even  suppress 
the  instincts  necessary  to  its  self-preservation  with  the  ap- 
proval of  the  Divine  Author  of  both  natures. 

Among  the  faculties  of  the  soul  there  exists  no  less  dis- 
tinction of  rank  and  authority.  There  are  powers  which 
seem  especially  designed  for  the  present  life,  whose  action 
is  essential  to  its  earthly  preservation,  happiness,  and 
progress.  There  are  others  that  are  evidently  of  a  higher 
grade  and  sublimer  destiny,  which,  for  the  most  part,  are 
kept  in  abeyance  here,  and  allowed  only  in  rare  instances 
to  assume  the  supremacy  and  to  reveal  the  latent  powers 
of  their  being.  There  are  yet  others  that  oversweep  all 
these  inferior  energies,  and  claim  their  obedience  on  penalty 
of  leaving  them  to  the  fatal  anarchy  of  the  lowest  passions. 

These  faculties  are  called  generically  the'  propensities  or 
sensibilities,  the  intellect  and  the  moral  nature.  Most  of 
the  propensities,  though  capable  of  cooperating  with  the 
higher  powers  of  the  soul,  in  by  far  the  greater  portion  of 
their  activity  and  the  greater  part  of  mankind,  act  indepen- 
dently of  all  moral  guidance.  They  are  confined  too,  largely, 
to  this  state  of  existence.  Self-love  is  generally  considered 
as  the  basis  solely  of  earthly  pleasure ;  esteem  regards 
earthly  favor ;  desire  for  existence  includes  mainly  a  pas- 
sion for  earthly  life  ;  curiosity  is  limited  to  earthly  inquisi- 
tion ;  and  sociality  to  the  divers  forms  of  affections  arising 
from,  and  centering  in,  earthly  relations. 

In  our  devotion  to  this  portion  of  our  nature,  the  de- 
mands of  the  intellect  are  often  neglected.  Passion  rules 
the  hour,  rules  every  hour,  and  Thought  toils  as  its  bond 
slave.  The  mind  is  chiefly  studious  to  obtain  means  for 


4  THE   HIGHER  LAW. 

gratifying  the  propensities.  It  seeks  gain,  frames  plans, 
pursues  studies  chiefly  that  vanity,  pride,  or  lower  lusts  may 
have  the  larger  indulgence.  Only  in  occasional  moments 
does  it  tower  before  mankind,  when  the  over-sated  passion 
reveals  its  own  inferiority,  or  when  some  Leibnitz  or  New- 
ton has  mounted  above  the  narrow  skies  that  bound  their 
vision,  and  transmitted  some  of  their  discoveries  to  these 
slaves  of  mere  desire. 

Above  the  intellect  rises  the  moral  nature,  and  claims  the 
service  of  both  these  classes  of  faculties.  It  asserts  its 
authority  over  them  by  allowing  them,  if  rebellious,  to  run 
into  ruinous  excess  of  riot  and  of  skepticism,  and  by  enabling 
them,  if  obedient  to  its  .dictates,  to  grow  harmoniously  and 
happily,  after  their  original  design. 

It  was  not  intended  that  this  diversity  of  constitution 
should  lead  to  discord  and  mutual  injury.  The  law  of 
the  body  had  no  original  hostility  to  that  of  the  soul. 
Our  selfish  and  our  social  nature  were  made  to  act  in 
unison.  The  duties  pertaining  to  earthly  life  had  no  es- 
sential opposition,  but  rather  an  essential  oneness  with 
those  that  lead  out  to  another  existence.  The  mind,  and 
heart,  and  conscience  were  designed  to  be  as  harmonious 
as  the  nature  of  God  himself,  in  whose  image  they  are 
created.  These  complex  duties  and  interests,  so  marvelous- 
ly  interwoven,  have  no  constitutional  defects  or  variances. 
There  was  no  entangling  of  threads,  no  jarring  of  chord 
with  chord,  as  they  came  from  the  hand  divine.  It  was  a 
microcosm  combining  in  outward  form  and  inward  action 
the  same  multiplicity  in  unity,  and  complexity  in  simpli- 
city, that  is  exhibited  by  that  infinite  macrocosm,  the 
universe  itself.  Under  their  united  action  every  institution 
of  man,  domestic,  social,  or  civil,  every  outgrowth  of  his 
nature,  could  have  been  established  and  matured  without  pos- 
sibility of  imperfection  or  collision.  The  family  would  have 
been  an  harmonious  unit,  full  of  life  and  love.  The  State 


THE   FUGITIVE   SLAVE   BILL.  5 

would  have  respected  every  right,  and  aided  while  it  em- 
braced all  minor  movements  in  its  rounded  fullness.  The 
Church  would  have  been  identical  with  the  State,  though  su- 
perior to  it,  informing  it  with  the  more  subtile  life  of  the  soul, 
hanging  its  humbler  dome  in  the  heaven  of  heavens.  Art, 
commerce,  handicraft,  every  form  and  force  of  activity,  would 
have  each  moved  righteously  and  efficiently  in  its  own  sphere, 
while  they  aided,  rather  than  impeded,  the  congenital  voca- 
tions. Earth  and  Man  would  have  been  one  with  Heaven 
and  God. 

But  a  hostile  element  invades  the  soul,  and  anarchy 
prevails.  Satan  mars  the  machinery  of  God.  Excess  of 
indulgence  or  of  abstinence  becomes  the  mode  of  human 
action,  and  ignorance  of  the  true  law,  or  inability  to  pursue 
it  steadily,  prevents  their  perfect  harmony  and  growth.  This 
disorder  possesses  every  man,  and  is  revealed  in  all  the  or- 
ganizations into  which  his  wants  and  nature  are  expanded. 

"The  trail  of  the  serpent  is  over  them  all." 

Under  such  conditions,  it  becomes  us  to  study  carefully 
'our  duty  in  every  relation  we  sustain,  whether  to  ourselves, 
our  fellow,  or  our  God,  remembering  that  all  these  rela- 
tions meet  and  melt  into  Him  who  is  their  only  Source  and 
everlasting  Life. 

Among  these  qualities  are  those  feelings  and  ties  that 
compose  the  organism  called  the  State,  or  civil  government. 
The  last  has  the  narrower  significance.  Civil  government 
means,  primarily,  the  authority  of  a  city.  It  shows  that  a 
condensed  population  gathered  around  competent  leaders, 
subdued  and  then  ruled  the  scattered  peoples  beyond  their 
walls.  But  the  State  —  that  which  stands  —  has  the  calm 
look  of  permanence,  the  solid  shape  of  eternity.  It  ex- 
presses the  confidence  and  the  restfulness  of  man.  "  Here 
I  have  peace.  Here  I  have  room  for  the  quiet  growth  of 
all  my  being.  These  arms  of  power  are  around  me  to  shield 


6  THE   HIGHER  LAW. 

and  to  support.  By  it  my  weakness  is  made  strong,  my 
littleness  enlarged,  my  single-hand  made  myriad-handed,  my 
poverty  is  changed  to  unmeasured  affluence,  and  my  paltry 
personality  becomes  majestic  and  mighty  as  the  oneness  of 
the  sea." 

Well  may  we  be  careful  how  we  assail  or  undermine 
this  hope  of  the  Kace.  Well  may  enmity  to  its  will  be 
branded  by  the  word  second  only  to  murder,  if  second  to 
that,  in  the  abhorrence  of  man  —  treason.  For  what  is  he 
who  destroys  individual  life,  compared  with  him  who  slays 
the  State  ? 

But  if  the  State  has  such  a  root  in  the  instincts  of  man- 
kind, it,  too,  must  beware  lest  it  pervert  its  office  from 
the  protector  to  the  destroyer  of  its  people.  For  as  high 
as  it  is  exalted  in  love  and  power  by  its  willing  subjects, 
when  it  is  an  instrument  of  justice,  so  low  will  it  plunge  in 
the  execrations  of  its  people,  in  weakness  within  and  abroad, 
if  it  make  itself  the  instrument  of  injustice.  Exalted  to 
heaven,  it  shall  be  cast  down  to  hell. 

In  this  hour,  then,  when  the  people  are  perplexed  by 
the  action  of  the  State,  it  is  our  solemn  duty  to  examine 
the  ground  of  its  origin,  and  the  relations  it  sustains  to  the 
higher  law  of  our  nature, — the  voice  of  God  in  the  soul  of 
man, — before  we  consider  how  its  late  enactments  comport 
with  that  law,  and  what  are  our  individual  duties  under  the 
circumstances  it  has  forced  upon  us. 

Civil  government  exists  by  the  will  of  God.  The  social 
element  in  man  in  its  development  into  its  natural  forms 
reveals  itself  in  that  of  the  State.  This  is  its  last  expres- 
sion. Under  it  this  propensity  has  the  fullest  range  and 
action.  Solitary  man  becomes  the  family,  the  community, 
the  nation. 

But  since  the  idea  of  nationality  springs  from  this  pro- 
pensity, its  government  must  be  under  the  supervision  of 
the  faculties  which  govern  its  source ;  that  is,  the  Judgment 


THE   FUGITIVE    SLAVE   BILL.  7 

and  Conscience.  If  not,  then  the  gregarious  habits  and 
laws  of  beasts  are  civil  government,  for  their  instinct  is 
identical  with  this  propensity  in  its  original  action. 

If  this  desire  for  social  organization  originates  with  our 
Creator,  and  is  placed  under  the  control  of  our  intelligent  and 
moral  nature,  then  must  it  be  developed  only  in  accordance 
with  the  will  of  the  Creator,  and  under  the  direction  of  His 
law  written  in  our  hearts  arid  in  His  Word.  It  cannot  grow 
to  its  due  and  destined  height  without  coming  into  con- 
nection, and  perhaps  into  collision,  with  other  faculties  and 
duties.  Only  the  appointed  ruler  of  the  soul  can  decide 
between  conflicting  passions,  or  lead  them  each  to  their 
proper  fullness,  and  so  make  the  whole  an  harmonious 
unit. 

Since,  then,  the  process  of  forming  a  civil  government 
must  be  guided  by  our  moral  nature,  the  duties  we  owe  it, 
in  its  right  or  wrong  procedure,  are  all  referred  to  the  same 
tribunal.  Before  the  judgment  seat  of  the  Conscience  must 
it  stand.  If  that  condemns  it,  then  must  it  plead  guilty  ; 
if  that  forbids  obedience  to  its  wrong  behests,  they  must 
be  disobeyed  ;  if  that  demands  that  it  should  repeal  its  laws 
and  make  them  conformable  to  the  law  of  God,  it  must 
hasten  to  obey  on  pain  of  the  righteous  displeasure  and  sure 
judgments  of  God,  who  will  sustain  the  authority  of  the 
Conscience,  His  vicegerent,  against  all  combinations  and  all 
adversaries. 

Two  questions  here  arise  :  — 

1st.  How  shall  we  know  when  the  decrees  of  the  State 
are  inconsistent  with  the  Will  of  God  ? 

2d.  How  shall  we  act  when  we  are  satisfied  that  such  an 
inconsistency  exists  ? 

I.  How  shall  we  know  when  the  decrees  of  the  State 
are  inconsistent  with  the  Will  of  God  ? 

We  should  include  the  institutions  with  the  acts  of 
government,  for  the  error  of  its  customs  usually  precedes 


8  THE   HIGHER  LAW. 

and  produces  errors  in  its  acts.  The  leprosy  lies  deep 
within  in  most  cases  of  spiritual  disease.  Society  is  wicked 
inwardly  before  it  is  formally.  It  is  the  corrupt  tree  that 
bringeth  forth  corrupt  fruit. 

This  should  be  the  more  carefully  noticed,  since  trans- 
gressors are  always  inclined  to  shelter  their  conduct  under 
the  prevailing  power  of  the  evil  that  produces  it.  Intem- 
perance exists, — therefore  it  must  be  legally  protected. 
Idolatry  is  universal,  —  therefore  it  is  wrong  to  resist  it. 
Kings  reign, — therefore  they  rule  by  right  divine,  and  dis- 
obedience to  any  of  their  behests  is  treason  against  God. 

This  plea  has  been  the  strongest  weapon  of  offense  and 
defense  in  our  great  controversy.  Slavery  exists  in  society, 
and  is  recognized  in  the  Constitution  ;  therefore  edicts  for 
its  protection  are  right.  And  all  hostility  to  it,  or  them, 
is  contrary  to  the  preservation!  of  the  State  and  the  Will 
of  God. 

Are  there  any  means  of  learning  our  duty,  other  than 
what  the  laws  and  customs  of  society  itself  afford  ?  Has 
God  transferred  all  His  authority  over  the  human  soul  to  the 
State  ?  Has  He  made  that  the  solitary  receptacle  of  His 
wisdom,  and  declared  that  obedience  to  its  mandates  is  the 
sole  ground  of  acceptance  with  Him  ?  Has  He  delegated 
to  it  power  over  the  future  destiny  of  the  immortal  beings 
intrusted  to  its  care,  saying  to  its  governors,  "Whatsoever 
thou  shalt  bind  on  earth  shall  be  bound  in  heaven,  and  what- 
soever thou  shalt  loose  on  earth  shall  be  loosed  in  heaven  "  ? 
If  this  is  not  the  case,  but  if,  on  the  contrary,  civil  govern- 
ment derives  its  strength  and  stability  from  laws  originating 
out  of  and  above  it,  then  is  it  binding  upon  us  to  seek  to 
know  what  these  means  of  moral  illumination  are,  and 
where  they  are  to  be  found. 

As  God  is  one,  His  moral  law  must  be  one  and  the  same, 
in  whatever  way  it  may  be  revealed  to  us.  He  has  chosen 
three  ways  of  revelation — through  Conscience,  Providence, 


THE   FUGITIVE    SLAVE   BILL.  9 

and  His  Word.  Whatever  these  clearly  agree  in  must  be 
of  the  highest  authenticity  and  authority. 

Our  moral  being,  though  rendered  imperfect  and  obtuse 
by  reason  of  sin,  is  still,  in  some  respects,  true  to  its  original 
character.  The  needle  may  be  drawn  by  wrong  attractions, 
for  the  moment,  from  its  true  direction  ;  but  still  within  it 
dwells  the  force  that  is  ever  pressing  it  against  all  temp- 
tations to  point  to  its  pole.  Conscience,  however  perverted, 
ever  possesses  this  instinct.  In  respect  to  some  of  its 
duties,  no  amount  of  influence  can  destroy  its  attraction 
towards  the  true  and  the  excellent.  No  state  of  barbarism 
has  sunk  so  low  as  to  make  disobedience  to  parents,  in- 
gratitude, or  maternal  hatred  of  offspring  appear  right.  No 
matter  what  brutality  of  degradation  may  have  obscured 
these  sentiments,  —  they  still  and  ever  live.  They  cannot  be 
destroyed.  They  spring  up  spontaneously,  and  no  edict  of 
the  State,  no  seduction  of  priestcraft,  no  brutality  of  con- 
dition, has  been  able  to  suppress  them.  Maternal  love  will 
yearn  over  its  helpless  babe.  Gratitude  will  gush  forth 
from  the  most  hardened  subject  of  unmerited  kindnegs. 
Reverence  for  parents  will  arise  in  the  heart  of  every  child. 
Every  eifort  of  the  State  to  destroy  them  only  proves  its 
own  weakness  and  folly.  They  are  above  and  in  advance  of 
human  power,  and  to  them  must  it  bow  if  it  seek  exten- 
sion or  permanence. 

These  instinctive  actions  of  our  moral  nature  are  con- 
firmed by  its  cooler,  if  not  clearer,  utterances.  The  Con- 
science sits  sovereign.  However  much  beguiled  from  its 
steadfastness  by  the  force  of  education,  custom,  fear,  or 
flattery,  it  cannot  be  wholly  perverted.  It  is  still  employed 
by  our  Creator  as  His  representative  in  the  soul.  It  is  still 
one  of  His  appointed  guides  to  us  in  all  perplexed  and 
devious  ways.  Though  often  drawn  into  a  seeming  support 
of  sin,  in  its  depths  it  has  remained  faithful  to  the  truth. 
It  has  favored  persecution,  because  it  thought  it  was  thus 


10  THE   HIGHER   LAW. 

doing  service  both  to  God  and  its  victim.  It  has  never 
approved  of  incest;  adultery,  blasphemy,  murder,  any  vice 
which  could  not  steal  some  garment  of  virtue  in  which  to 
hide  its  hatefulness.  This  faculty,  therefore,  is  a  chief  ally 
in  the  detection  of  the  «will  of  God.  If  enlightened  and 
assisted  by  its  Creator,  it  may  become  to  us,  as  it  is  to  the 
sinless  of  Heaven,  the  oracle  of  God,  — 

"  A  light  to  guide,  a  rod 
To  check  the  erring,  and  reprove." 

Its  slightest  suggestion  demands  our  most  solemn  atten- 
tion. Its  positive  decisions  cannot  be  opposed  or  evaded 
without  bringing  us  into  condemnation  with  God,  and  sub- 
jecting us,  if  unrepentant,  to  the  full  measure  of  His  just 
indignation. 

Another  mode  of  discovering  the  will  of  God  is.  by  His 
Providence.  As  He  rules  over  all  kingdoms  and  ages,  a 
faithful  seeker  of  His  will  can  draw  many  safe  conclusions 
from  the  rise  and  fall  of  customs  and  opinions.  He  will 
discern  two  great  laws.  Nothing  enacted  by  God  for  the 
race  of  man  has  ever  died  out  of  society.  Temporary  in- 
stitutions of  His  planting,  like  the  Jewish  government,  may 
disappear ;  but  then  only  to  reappear  in  a  fuller  and  finer 
form.  No  influences,  however  strong,  or  united,  or  persistent, 
have  been  able  to  extirpate  or  to  permanently  retard  these 
divine  germs.  On  the  other  hand,  no  principle  nor  practice 
in  opposition  to  the  law  of  God  has  been  able  to  gain  and 
retain  enduring  sway.  Though  upheld  by  every  interest 
and  fortified  by  every  power  which  the  god  of  this  world 
could  summon  to  his  aid,  though  fed  by  the  passions,  the 
prejudice,  the  timidity,  the  ambition  of  man,  they  have 
shrunk  before  the  breath  of  the  Almighty,  and  have  either 
faded  slowly  away  before  the  gradual  diffusion  of  His  truth, 
or  have  been  suddenly  consumed  by  the  brightness  of  His 
coming.  Idolatry,  atheism,  absolutism,  infanticide,  witch- 


THE   FUGITIVE    SLAVE    BILL.  11 

craft,  what  evils  that  have  ruled  mankind  witli  a  rod  of  iron, 
has  He  not  broken  in  pieces  as  a  potter's  vessel  ?  In 
these  great  laws  written  along  the  ages,  the  will  of  God 
and  the  duty  of  man  can  be  most  vividly  discerned. 

The  last  mode  He  has  adopted  to  make  known  His 
wishes,  which  are  to  be  our  law,  is  in  His  writings.  In 
them  we  have  eternal  truth.  They  are  a  lamp  unto  our 
feet,  and  a  light  unto  our  path.  Not  that  every  difficulty 
we  meet  on  that  path  is  especially  noted  in  this  chart  of  our 
voyage  ;  but  the  general  principles  that  fit  these  particular 
cases  are  scattered  over  all  its  pages,  run,  a  stream  divine, 
through  its  entire  limits.  If  wild  and  wicked  fantasies  have 
sought  refuge  under  its  panoply,  if  single  passages  have 
been  wrested  from  their  connected  and  evident  meaning  to 
the  support  of  criminal  opinions  and  the  destruction  of  their 
advocates,  still  these  perversions  of  men  of  corrupt  minds 
do  not  disturb  its  marvelous  unity  and  consistency.  They 
may  teach  us  not  to  seek  to  shelter  our  depraved  propen- 
sities under  its  sacred  shadow.  They  do  teach  us  to  seek 
prayerfully  its  real  and  consistent  meaning.  They  do  not 
deprive  us  of  its  counsel  and  support  in  matters  of  honest 
inquiry  and  conscientious  desire  to  know  and  do  the  will  of 
our  Father  which  is  in  heaven.  And  if  we  find  any  local 
word  in  seeming  hostility  to  the  sense  of  right,  we  must 
seek  to  adapt  that  expression  to  its  declarations  of  universal 
application  rather  than  to  sacrifice  these  truths  at  the  shrine 
of  permitted  but  condemned  infirmities. 

If,  when  thus  examined,  we  find  the  whole  drift  of  its 
teachings,  whether  of  precept  or  example,  coincident  with 
the  course  of  Providence,  the  declarations  of  Conscience,  and 
the  instincts  of  Humanity,  we  have  the  strongest  possible 
ground  for  assurance. 

Hence  we  conclude  that  any  act  which  violates  'the 
instincts  of  our  nature,  clashes  with  the  decisions  of  Con- 
science, deviates  from  the  path  of  Providence,  and  disagrees 


12  THE    HIGHER   LAW. 

with  the  Word  of  God,  is  clearly  contrary  to  His  will,  and 
must  be  treated  as  an  enemy  of  mankind. 

But,  if  it  is  possible  for  us  to  come  to  any  positive  con- 
clusions upon  the  moral  quality  of  any  decree  of  State,  and 
if  these  divinely  appointed  arbiters  upon  the  case  have  de- 
cided that  it  is  wrong,  then  the  question  arises  :  — 

II.  How  shall  we  act  in  reference  to  the  immoral  -decree? 

1.  We  should  refuse  to  cooperate  in  enforcing  it.  It 
has  been  not  unfrequently  asserted  in  the  present  strife 
of  opinion,  that  we  are  bound  actively  to  support  a  law, 
however  bad,  so  long  as  it  remains  on  the  statute  books. 
It  is  a  law  of  the  land.  Obedience  to  its  behests  is  the 
first  duty  of  a  virtuous  citizen.  But,  as  we  have  already 
proved,  civil  government  is  an  institution  founded  on  an 
inferior  element  of  our  nature,  and  hence  has  no  power  to 
bend  the  higher  faculties  to  its  will,  unless  it  first  conforms 
to  their  requirements. 

We  know  that  in  our  private  action  we  are  compelled  to 
refuse  compliance  to  any  habit  which  opposes  the  decrees 
of  Conscience.  No  evil  desire,  however  strong,  however 
habitual,  however  essential,  seemingly,  to  our  comfort,  and 
even  to  our  existence,  can  rightfully  command  the  cooper- 
ation of  the  will.  One's  vicious  habits  may  have  become 
so  powerful  that  their  indulgence  is  absolutely  necessary 
to  the  preservation  of  his  life.  Yet  if  he  obeys  them,  he 
saves  his  life  arid  loses  his  soul.  "  If  thine  eye  offend  thee, 
pluck  it  out  and  cast  it  from  thee.  For  it  is  profitable  for 
thce  that  one  of  thy  members  should  perish,  and  not  that 
thy  whole  body  should  be  cast  into  hell." 

In  the  family,  the  earliest  form  in  which  this  social  nature 
reveals  itself,  the  same  law  obtains.  Though  the  obliga- 
tions of  its  members  to  its  general  laws  have  the  clearest 
approval  of  the  Creator,  yet  it  has  often  been  true  that  a 
man  must  forsake  his  father  and  mother,  wife  and  child,  if 
he  would  be  Christ's  disciple.  Will  a  Christian  not  say  that 


THE    FUGITIVE    SLAVE    BILL.  13 

circumstances  may  arise  which  will  make  it  supremely 
necessary  for  the  child  to  refuse  compliance  with  his 
parents'  commands  ?  that  he  cannot  obey  his  Father  in 
heaven  without  disobeying  his  father  on  earth  ?  And  shall 
our  personal  habits  arid  family  ties  both  be  sundered  in 
obedience  to  the  will  of  God,  and  we  still  be  compelled  to 
assist  in  enforcing  a  statute  of  society,  which  is  far  more 
at  enmity  with  the  law  of  God,  and  injurious  to  His  cause, 
than  any  private  practice  can  possibly  be  ?  If  we  must 
refuse  to  obey  ourselves  or  our  parents  when  ordered  into 
sin,  much  more  must  we  refuse  obedience  to  the  more  sinful 
and  more  dangerous  demands  of  government. 

2.  But  there  is  an  additional  duty  imposed  upon  us.  We 
must  not  only  refuse  to  assist  in  the  execution  of  an  unright- 
eous law,  —  we  are  required  of  God  to  refuse  to  desist  from 
those  duties  whose  performance  this  law  has  forbidden. 

Many  may  have  moral  courage  enough  to  refuse  to  do  a 
wicked  act,  and  not  have  sufficient  to  nerve  them  to  do  a 
righteous  one  in  opposition  to  the  ungodly  decree.  Many 
a  follower  of  Christ  has  shrunk  from  a  defense  of  His 
cause,  when  they  would  have  equally  shrunk  from  a  denial 
of  Him.  Yet  there  are  claims  which  our  Maker  has  upon 
us,  compliance  with  which  is  essential  to  our  growth  in 
grace,  and  even  to  the  possession  of  His  favor.  "  He  that 
is  not  for  Me  is  against  Me,  arid  he  that  gathereth  not  with 
Me  scattereth  abroad."  Were  it  not  so,  the  principles  of 
the  Gospel  never  could  spread  through  the  world.  Sin  has 
gained  possession  of  the  hearts  and  the  heads  of  men.  It 
has  organized  governments,  and  established  itself  in  the  high 
places  of  influence  and  authority.  It  would  be  careless 
respecting  passive  resistance  to  its  demands,  save  when 
prompted  by  its  instinctive  hatred  of  goodness  to  pour 
upon  the  servant  of  God  the  fury  of  its  malice.  It  is 
only  by  doing  what  is  impiously  forbidden  that  the  soul 
gains  the  approval  of  God  and  extends  His  dominions. 


14  THE   HIGHER  LAW. 

The  history  of  Christianity  affords  innumerable  examples 
of  this  obligation.  From  the  career  of  Christ  to  that  of 
His  latest  disciple  who  has  thus  followed  his  Master,  come 
to  us  lessons  of  instruction  and  encouragement.  Those 
who  passed  through  great  tribulation,  who  fought  the  good 
fight,  who  opposed  the  world,  the  flesh,  and  the  devil,  and 
are  now  surrounding  the  throne  of  God,  esteem  it  their 
chief  honor  that  they  trod  the  path  of  Duty,  though  human 
customs,  opinion,  edicts,  and  power  combined  to  keep  them 
motionless,  or  to  force  them  upon'  the  broad  and  crowded 
road  of  popular,  legal,  governmental  sin. 

3.  There  is  still  another  duty,  coextensive  with  the  law 
which  it  opposes. 

We  are  required  to  cast  our  influence  against  it,  and  to 
endeavor  to  create  a  public  sentiment  which  shall  nullify  its 
action  and  obtain  its  repeal. 

There  may  be  some  unholy  edicts  which  the  majority  of 
the  subjects  of  government  can  oppose  only  in  this  way. 
But  even  this  many  shrink  from  doing.  Feeling  but  little 
their  responsibility  for  immoral  laws,  they  allow  them  to  be 
enacted  and  executed  without  their  opposition,  in  deed  or 
word.  In  this  they  act  contrary  to  the  practice  and  com- 
mands of  Christ.  He  was  bold  to  reprove  all  wrong  insti- 
tutions and  edicts.  He  faithfully  shed  the  light  which  He 
brought  into  the  woi'ld  upon  all  the  habitations  of  cruelty. 
If  we  would  receive  His  approval,  we  must  pour  the  light 
of  truth  upon  the  nefarious  laws  and  practices  that  yet  curse 
mankind.  In  this  way  all  can  serve  their  God  and  create  a 
moral  power  that  shall  sweep  all  these  solidified  and  imperi- 
ous iniquities  from  the  world.  These  fires  kindled  in  solitary 
breasts,  spreading  through  their  nearer  circles  of  family, 
church,  and  community,  shall  meet  and  enkindle  other  like 
fires  in  other  hearts,  and  other  localities,  until  the  mighty 
flame  shall  blaze  over  all  the  land,  and  consume  the  evil  that 
had  long  enjoyed  supreme  possession. 


THE   FUGITIVE    SLAVE    BILL.  15 

When,  then,  we  are  convinced  of  the  immorality  of  a 
law,  if  we  would  render  to  God  the  things  that  are  God's, 
we  are  oath-bound  of  conscience  to  refuse  compliance  with 
its  demands  for  cooperation,  to  disobey  its  commands  to 
desist  from  the  right  which  it  opposes,  and  to  throw  our 
'influence  against  it,  so  as  to  destroy  its  energy  and  compel 
its  repeal. 

III.  Let  us  apply  these  fundamental  principles  to  the 
subject  which  is  so  fearfully  agitating  the  nation. 

The  law  for  the  rendition  of  fugitives  comes  to  us  clothed 
in  the  majesty  of  that  authority  which  we  all  feel  bound  to 
respect,  and,  if  possible,  to  obey.  Yet  its  form  and  fea- 
tures, despite  this  stateliness,  are  repugnant  to  our  feelings 
and  judgment.  Caesar,  though  in  set  array  and  claiming 
sovereign  honors,  is  demanding  clearly  not  the  things  which 
are  his  own,  but  the  things  which  are  God's.  The  question 
of  obligation  is  therefore  brought  home  to  our  hearts.  It 
is  no  theory  merely  that  we  have  been  discussing,  no  scho- 
lastic bout  of  words,  but  a  present  and  pressing  duty.  We 
may  feel  at  a  loss  how  to  proceed.  We  may  fancy  our 
sympathy  for  the  slave  is  an  impulse  of  benevolence  which 
cooler  decisions  of  the  reason  should  restrain,  while  the 
duty  of  sustaining  the  authority  of  law  is  confirmed  by  every 
consideration  of  benevolence  and  justice,  human  and  divine. 

Amid  this  contest  of  principles,  when  the  pulpit  and  press 
are  urging  the  decree  of  State  as  of  superior  claim  to  the 
decree  of  Conscience,  when  we  are  told  obedience  to  Caesar 
fulminating  his  edicts  against  God  is  a  greater  duty  than 
obedience  to  God  Himself,  tittering  his  decrees  in  every 
heart  against  this  law  of  Caesar,  in  such  a  moment  of  wide- 
spread and  increasing  conflict,  we  must  reexamine  the 
charts  divinely  granted  us,  to  see  if  we  can  track  the  course 
marked  out  by  the  King  of  kings,  the  Caesar  of  Caesars, 
which  alone  will  lead  us  to  the  desired  haven. 

The  ground  of   our  opposition  to  all  laws  that  protect 


16  THE   HIGHER  LAW. 

slavery  is  the  feeling  against  slavery  itself.  We  may  pro- 
fess to  give  political  or  other  reasons  for  this  feeling,  but 
we  fail  to  see,  or  to  acknowledge,  the  true  reason  by  any 
such  pretenses.  It  is  an  abhorrence  to  the  claim  of  Prop- 
erty in  Man  that  is  the  inspiration  and  the  vitality  of  the  pas- 
sion that  now  belts  the  North  with  a  burning  zone.  Is  this 
conviction  based  on  immutable  foundations  in  the  moral 
nature  ?  or  is  it  a  transient  emotion,  the  offspring  of  a  per- 
verted fancy  ?  or  is  it  a  fanatical  indulgence  of  a  rightful 
emotion  which  we  should  curb  within  its  appropriate  limits  ? 
There  are  many  who  advocate  the  last  opinion,  whose  influ- 
ence greatly  retards  the  progress  of  the  truth.  How  deep 
this  cause  is  seated  may  be  learned  from  considering  the 
nature  of  the  crime  which  it  is  opposing. 

Slavery  is  the  most  extreme  and  terrible  violation  of  hu- 
man rights.  Appeal  to  your  moral  instincts.  Do  they  not 
revolt  from  a  state  of  servitude  ?  Would  you  yield  up  your 
liberty  of  thought,  of  speech,  of  act,  and  become  the  pos- 
session, body  and  soul,  of  another  ?  History  shows  the 
supreme  vitality  and  energy  of  this  feeling.  All  other 
passions  and  purposes  of  men  are  weak  in  comparison  with 
this  innermost  nature.  It  is  read  in  the  insurrections 
which  disturb  the  serenity  of  tyrants,  in  the  revolutions  that 
have  wrought  such  mighty  changes  in  society,  in  the 
haughty  bearing  of  the  savage,  in  the  elastic  step  of  the 
freeman.  It  impels  every  colony  to  proclaim  its  indepen- 
dence from  its  parent  State  when  its  strength  is  sufficient 
to  sustain  its  desires.  It  is  the  soul  of  eloquence,  of  poetry, 
of  art,  of  patriotism.  It  feeds  the  sacred  fires  of  religion. 
Right  over  myself,  a  right  given  by  God,  and  only  to  be 
annulled  by  Him,  or  for  reasons  which  He  approves,  —  this 
is  the  first  law  of  our  individual  being. 

But  it  is  cruelly  said,  these  emotions  are  not  common  to 
the  enslaved  people  of  America.  They  are  beneath  this 
universal  sentiment  of  humanity,  because  they  are  beneath 


THE   FUGITIVE    SLAVE   BILL.  17 

the  grade  of  man.  See  how  those  who  have  known  nothing 
of  freedom  save  by  the  undying  promptings  of  their  nature 
are  making  efforts  to  obtain  it,  by  as  great  courage  and 
sufferings  as  have  made  illustrious  the  annals  of  the  world. 

"  Their  pulses  beat  with  floods  of  living  fire." 

They  hide  themselves  in  the  perilous  holds  of  tiny  coasters  ; 
they  put  on  disguises  and  thread  fearfully  the  paths  of  travel. 
A  lady,  soft  and  delicate,  wears,  like  Imogen,  the  garb  of 
men,  and  employs  as  a  servant  her  darker-favored  hus- 
band, both  slaves  now,  both  unspeakably  despised  because 
slaves  and  of  African  blood,  but  both  to  be  held  in  honor 
abroad  and  at  home,  and  to  become  noted  persons  in  the 
history  of  their  times.*  One  has  himself  nailed  in  a  box, 
and  in  this  coffin-like  carriage  is  rudely  tossed  hither  and 
thither,  as  freight,  after  the  rough  mode  of  public  carriers, 
who,  had  they  dreamed  they  were  handling  a  living  man, 
and  he  a  black  slave,  would  have  torn  off  the  cover,  not  to 
relieve,  deliver,  and  hail  such  unexampled  endurance,  but 
to  reject  him  with  loathing,  as  of  a  race  that  neither  de- 
serves nor  desires  its  liberty,  and  to  hurl  him  hotly  back 
into  the  hell  from  which  they  were  unwittingly  bearing  him. 

Thus  does  the  nature  of  man  break  through  every  crust, 
however  thick,  of  oppression  and  degradation,  and  assert 
its  supreme  prerogative.  Thus  does  its  immutable  decree 
declare  the  wrongfulness  of  that  iniquity  which  most  posi- 
tively prevents  its  rightful  exercise. 

Not  only  do  our  instincts  thus  condemn  slavery,  but  our 
conscience  approves  their  decision.  Whatever  palliatives 
may  be  thrown  around  it,  whatever  texts  of  Scripture  may 
be  wrested  most  wickedly  to  its  support,  whatever  glamour 
Church  and  Society  may  seek  to  throw  around  its  horrid 
nature,  it  can  never  seduce  the  Conscience  to  its  service. 

*  William  and  Ellen  Crafts.     He  has  been  employed  in  the  Foreign 
Service  of  the  British  Government. 
2 


18  THE   HIGHER   LAW. 

That  tears  away  all  these  masks,  pierces  all  these  pre- 
tensions, strips  off  the  sacerdotal  and  social  robes,  and 
shows  the  devil  of  devils  in  this  livery  of  the  court  of 
heaven.  The  Conscience  of  the  North,  sometimes  against 
the  treachery,  frequently  despite  the  timidity,  of  its  pro- 
fessed exemplars  and  teachers,  has  exposed  it  to  the  exe- 
cration of  the  world,  and  made  all  true  souls  shrink  from 
its  awful  presence. 

The  Providence  of  God  vividly -supports  the  same  truth. 
Slavery  was  almost  the  first  born  of  sin,  and  has  settled  in 
midnight  blackness  on  every  nation.  No  scruples  existed 
as  to  the  color  or  nationality  of  the  victim.  If  he  was  the 
weaker,  he  became  the  property  of  the  stronger.  Black 
stole  white,  and  white  black.  The  children  of  Ham  sold 
and  scourged  the  children  of  Japhet,  and  those  of  Japhet 
unrighteously  fulfilled  prophecy  by  dwelling  thus  cruelly 
in  the  tents  of  Shem. 

What  has  caused,  in  the  slow  march  of  the  world,  its  steady 
disappearance  ?  Why  have  the  most  advanced  peoples  of 
mankind  outgrown  this  barbarism  ?  It  is  the  Providence  of 
God  declaring  its  sinfulness,  by  the  evils  He  inflicts  on  its 
disciples,  —  evils  in  the  state  of  anarchy,  of  corruption,  of 
poverty,  of  weakness,  of  dissolution ;  evils  in  the  individual 
transgressor  of  ignorance  and  brutality.  He  demanded  its 
extinction  as  the  first  step  in  civilization.  He  led  the 
advancing  races  further  and  further  from  its  black  abyss, 
until  now,  the  mere  idea  of  property  in  man  is  as  abhorrent 
to  the  Christian  world  as  the  eating  of  man,  its  twin  abomina- 
tion in  birth  and  dominion. 

The  Word  of  God  confirms  these  witnesses  to  this  truth. 
If  it  does  not,  then  must  this  mode  of  revelation  be  in  dis- 
agreement with  the  other  which  its  Author  has  adopted, 
which  would  be  equivalent  to  saying  that  God  approved  in 
the  Bible  that  which  he  condemns  in  the  conscience,  and 
in  His  Providence,  and  that  He  is  not,  therefore,  ever  and 


THE    FUGITIVE    SLAVE    BILL.  19 

everywhere,  One  and  the  Same.  No  such  fear  need  possess 
our  souls.  The  written  law  of  God  is  identical  with  that 
inscribed  on  the  tables  of  every  heart,  on  the  annals  of 
every  people,  on  the  pages  of  every  age.  Every  sentiment 
of  general  application,  every  decree  of  eternal  obligation, 
is  inspired  with  the  idea  of  liberty.  The  commands"  of 
Sinai  are  penned  on  every  Conscience.  Had  they  said, 
"  Worship  other  gods  and  all  gods  beside  or  with  Me,  dis- 
obey your  parents,  kill,  commit  adultery,  steal,  covet,  bear 
false  witness  against  your  neighbor,"  we  should  universally 
declare  the  Bible  the  worst  of  books,  and  its  Author  the 
worst  of  beings. 

Far  otherwise  is  the  truth.  Its  every  precept  is  instinct 
with  human  liberty.  Every  line  burns  against  human  bond- 
age. "Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbor  as  thyself."  "If  a 
man  love  not  his  brother,  whom  he  hath  seen,  how  can  he 
love  God,  whom  he  hath  not  seen  ?"  "  Love  worketh  no  ill 
to  his  neighbor."  "Ye  are  called  unto  liberty."  "  Whom 
the  Son  maketh  free  is  free  indeed."  "Do  unto  others  as  ye 
would  that  they  should  do  to  you."  Every  command,  and 
reflection,  and  incident  of  general  import  is  a  silent  or  vocal 
protest  against  slavery.  Whatever  words  may  there  be  found 
seemingly  recognizing  this  evil,  were  designed  to  mitigate  a 
system  that  could  not  yet  be  extirpated.  While  the  State 
with  its  every  arm  protected  the  sin,  and  raged  against  its 
victim,  it  was  almost  impossible  to  escape  from  its  toils.  Its 
meshes  covered  the  earth,  and  wherever  fugitives  fled,  they 
would  be  caught  in  the  snare  of  a  vigilant  tyranny.  Their 
duty  was,  therefore,  ordinarily,  to  abide  in  their  oppressed 
condition,  enjoying  spiritual  liberty,  and  looking  forward  to 
the  hour  when  death  should  break  the  chain  and  admit 
them  to  the  rights  and  joys  of  the  eternally  free.  But 
while  the  apostle  to  slaves  —  himself  boasting,  so  as  to  get 
nearer  their  estate  and  thus  their  hearts,  that  he,  too,  was 
a  slave,  but  of  Jesus  Christ,  who  also,  he  declared,  had 


20  THE    HIGHER    LAW. 

taken  upon  Himself  the  form  of  a  slave,  — -  carefully  ad- 
vised their  patient  endurance  of  the  ills  they  suffered,  he 
constantly  showed  how  wicked  was  the  state  they  were 
compelled  to  endure,  how  glorious  was  liberty  in  its  highest 
and  proportionally  in  its  lowest  forms,  how  proper  it  was 
for  them  to  escape,  if  possible,  from  their  doom,  how  ob- 
ligatory it  was  upon  Christian  masters  to  give  their  slaves 
that  which  was  just  and  equal,  which  could  be  nothing  less 
than  their  emancipation,  and  how  masters,  if  Christian, 
must  receive  their  own  slaves  no  longer  as  slaves,  but 
above  slaves,  even  as  brethren  beloved  in  the  flesh  and, 
the  Lord. 

The  early  history  of  the  Church  proves  the  true  character 
and  influence  of  the  Bible.  Christians  were  bound  to 
emancipate  their  slaves,  and  the  plate  was  often  sold  from 
the  altar  to  deliver  their  brethren  from  this  dreadful  yoke. 
Within  a  few  centuries  of  her  beginning,  and  almost 
in  the  first  of  her  political  domination,  she  had  cast  out  the 
evil  not  only  from  the  Church,  but  from  the  State,  that  ruled 
over  all  the  civilized  earth,  and  had  fostered  this  iniquity 
till  Christianity  assailed  it,  as  the  most  precious  jewel  of 
the  realm. 

Such  is  the  Word,  such  the  work,  of  the  Bible  against 
slavery.  It  is  designed  to  enforce  the  law  written  in  our 
hearts  by  the  light  of  nature,  with  the  clearer  utterances 
of  revealed  will.  It  cannot  clash  with  the  central  impulse 
of  that  earlier  law.  It  is  intended  for  the  guidance  of 
man  in  every  stage  of  his  human,  perhaps  of  his  heavenly 
career,  in  the  full  glory  of  the  millennial  age,  as  well  as 
the  full  darkness  of  the  pagan  era  ;  and  it  can  never  approve 
a  practice  which  the  Providence  of  God  is  clearly  removing 
to  make  way  for  the  full  triumph  of  the  Gospel  of  Christ. 

A  Book  of  such  vastness  of  aim  and  expression,  bound 
indissolubly  to  every  attribute  of  God,  can  never  be  per- 
verted to  the  service  of  Satan.  Its  frequent  declarations 


THE   FUGITIVE    SLAVE   BILL.  21 

in  the  polity  of  Moses  ;  its  pathetic  descriptions  of  the 
enslavement  of  Joseph,  of  the  Hebrew  people,  and  of  the 
kingdoms  of  Judea  and  Israel ;  the  odes  of  its  prophets, 
bewailing  the  bondage,  or  exulting  in  the  salvation  of 
their  people  ;  the  sublime  teachings  of  the  Savior ;  the 
sympathizing  advice  of  the  apostle,  —  all  show  that  the 
Word  of  God,  from  its  every  page,  in  one  steady,  change- 
less beam  of  light  divine,  portrays  and  consumes  this  crime 
of  crimes. 

Tested,  therefore,  by  all  the  means  given  us  for  discerning 
moral  quality,  slavery  is  condemned.  At  every  tribunal  to 
which  it  has  successively  appealed,  it  is  adjudged  guilty. 
Finding  no  protection  at  any  court  of  divine  decree,  it 
has  fled  to  the  civil  power,  and  is  now  striving  to  find 
under  its  shadow  safety  from  the  ministers  of  divine  jus- 
tice, and  liberty  to  pursue  unmolested  its  nefarious  career. 
Here  it  defies  our  assault,  and  profanely  presumes  to  exe- 
cute vengeance,  spiritual  no  less  than  civil,  on  all  who  dare 
oppose  its  hellish  sway. 

What  is  our  duty  in  respect  to  it  ?  » 

If  it  did  not  directly  put  itself  athwart  our  path,  if  it 
laid  no  commands  on  us  to  assist  in  its  extension  or  perpe- 
tuity, if  it  ruled  in  a  distant  realm,  and  our  land  was 
happily  free  from  its  baleful  presence,  we  should  still  be 
morally  bound  to  raise  our  voices  against  it,  to  strive  to 
enlighten  its  supporters,  to  relieve  its  victims,  and  to  seek 
in  every  right  way  its  extirpation.  We  acknowledge  this 
duty  binding  in  respect  to  every  other  vice.  Our  Missionary 
arid  Bible  Societies  attest  its  depth  and  fervor.  Our  sym- 
pathies for  Greece,  France,  Hungary,  and  Italy,  expressed 
not  only  by  the  general  press  and  voice,  but  in  some  cases 
by  the  solemn  resolves  of  the  National  Legislature,  show 
how  vain  and  wicked  it  is  to  suppress  the  feelings  of 
brotherhood,  and  the  actions  by  which  they  demand  ex- 
pression. 


22  THE   HIGHER   LAW. 

If  this  be  right  concerning  religious  and  political  errors 
separately,  shall  it  be  declared  wrong  if  indulged  toward 
an  institution  which  is  evil  of  every  kind,  which  annihilates 
all  civil  rights,  corrupts  all  moral  sentiments,  and  dethrones 
God  from  His  sovereignty  in  the  soul  ?  If  it  is,  then,  our 
unquestionable  right  and  most  imperative  duty  to  exert  our 
influence  for  its  abolition,  if  it  prevailed  in  another  country, 
does  this  duty  diminish  as  the  evil  approaches  our  shores, 
and  disappear  as  it  lands  upon  them  ?  Have  the  ignorant 
perpetrators  of  this  crime  no  claim  on  our  superior  light, 
and  their  intelligent  supporters  on  our  indignation  ?  Have 
its  victims  no  demand  on  our  tears  and  prayers  ? 

But  if  this  duty  be  ours  when  the  iniquity  is  united  with 
us  by  national  jurisdiction,  though  not  directly  influencing 
the  society  in  which  we  live,  it  becomes,  if  possible,  more 
imperative  when  the  unholy  institution  has  seized  the  power 
of  the  government,  and  is  using  it  for  its  basest  purposes  ; 
when  it  intrudes  its  hateful  presence  into  the  seats  which, 
till  now,  were  free  from  its  sway,  and  seeks  to  make  us 
abject  slaves  of  its  satanic  will.  Then  are  we  compelled  by 
every  consideration  of  the  present  and  future,  of  national 
honor,  of  our  own  life  even,  to  labor  for  its  removal.  Not 
with  the  corrupt  means  which  itself  gladly  uses  for  its 
diffusion,  not  with  its  own  favorite  weapons,  the  stake, 
the  knife,  the  bloodhound,  but  with  the  more  fatal  though 
less  speedy  weapons,  of  speech,  and  prayer,  arid  vote — 
powers  given  us  Toy  the  God  of  nations  and  of  men  for  the 
overthrow  of  every  stronghold  which  sin  erects  in  the 
institutions  of  society. 

A  government,  therefore,  which  indorses  slavery,  which 
orders  the  recovery  of  those  who  have  escaped  from  its 
dreadful  dungeon,  ought  to  be  met  with  one  general  burst 
of  execration,  one  united  prayer  and  effort  for  the  repeal 
of  its  wicked  enactment,  and  the  deliverance  of  those  so 
unrighteously  bound. 


THE   FUGITIVE    SLAVE   BILL.  23 

If  this  duty  is  not  embraced  by  all,  it  is  none  the  less 
binding  upon  us.  Our  individual  action  should  have  this 
tendency.  Our  prayer,  our  voice,  our  oath,  our  effort, 
should  be  devoted  to  the  destruction  of  this  engine  of 
oppression,  and  the  driving  back  of  its  director  and  inspirer 
to  his  native  hell. 

More  than  this  we  may  not  be  able  to  do.  The  foot  of 
the  fugitive  and  his  pursuer  may  not  pass  our  door.  But 
if  occasion  should  occur  which  should  bring  us  into  imme- 
diate contact  with  it,  by  present  or  future  laws,  (for  we 
know  not  what  edicts  may  yet  issue  from  this  perverted 
seat  of  power,)  other  duties  will  arise,  severe,  authorita- 
tive, unavoidable.  What  do  they  demand  ? 

\V(>  have  shown  that  when  any  human  law  is  opposed 
to  the  evident  decisions  of  divine  law,  those  edicts  are 
to  be  disobeyed  both  in  what  they  command  us  to  do,  and 
in  what  they  command  us  to  refrain  from  doing.  To  give 
us  a  right  to  act  in  this  manner,  the  law  must  be  clearly 
immoral.  Laws  requiring  obedience  to  any  peculiar  system 
of  government  are  not  of  this  class,  as  no  form  of  govern- 
ment, as  such,  can  be  proved  to  be  hostile  to  the  divine 
will.  But  an  act  designed  to  defend  a  system  abhorrent 
to  every  virtuous  faculty  of  our  nature,  stamped  with  in- 
famy by  the  hand  of  God  in  the  ruin  of  the, countries  and 
nations  which  cherish  it,  opposed  by  the  Conscience  of 
every  man,  and  the  Spirit  of  God,  —  such  a  system  finds 
no  defense  for  its  demands  in  any  laws  it  may  impudently 
set  up.  With  God  as  our  Guide  and  Inspirer,  we  should 
not  hesitate  to  advance  in  the  way  that  He  marks  out 
against  such  a  stronghold  of  Satan. 

Should  we  be  called  upon  to  assist  in  the  execution  of 
this  law,  we  must  refuse.  Ready  as  we  should  be  to  aid 
the  executors  of  laws  which  we  have  no  sound  reasons  to 
consider  morally  wrong,  we  should  refuse  any  assistance  in 
the  execution  of  those  clearly  criminal.  We  must  suffer,  if 


24  THE   HIGHER  LAW. 

need  be,  the  penalty  of  disobedience,  rejoicing  that  we  are 
counted  worthy  to  endure  such  contradiction  of  sinners, 
and  that  Christ  gives  us  strength  sufficient  for  the  high 
resolve. 

If  the  minions  of  government  should  not  attempt  to 
execute  upon  us  its  penalties,  it  will  not  be  from  want  of 
willingness  on  their  part  to  engage  in  such  work,  nor  from 
the  benevolence  of  the  State  which  approves  such  decrees. 
Those  who  are  ready  to  execute  a  cruel  law  on  an  un- 
offending woman  —  as  the  slave-catchers  of  the  North  are, 
and  will  be  —  will  delight  to  wreak  their  vengeance  upon 
those  who  dare  to  decline  cooperation.  Malice  always 
burns  the  fiercest  against  those  who,  like  the  Hebrew  cap- 
tives, refuse  to  follow  their  fellows  into  known  sin  at  the 
orders  of  popular  power.  This  is  already  seen  in  the  dia- 
bolic hate  with  which  disgrace  and  suffering  are  heaped 
upon  those  who  have  allowed  their  philanthropic  feelings 
to  cause  them  to  assist  in  the  escape  of  fugitives.  Some 
of  these  disciples  of  Christ  have  died  under  their  cruel 
mockings,  bonds,  and  imprisonment;  others  have,  till  lately, 
pined  away  in  solitude  and  misery,  within  the  walls  of  the 
national  jail ;  and  still  others  are  to-day  toiling  under  the 
lash  in  a  Kentucky  prison-house.  A  like  fate  would  befall 
us  even  in  tfyis  section,  boastful  of  its  liberty  of  speech, 
were  we  few  and  weak.  But,  by  the  grace  of  God,  the 
fangs  of  this  serpent  have  here  been  drawn.  It  has  lost 
much  of  its  deadly  venom,  and  slight  is  the  liability  of 
injury  from  obeying  this  command  of  our  Conscience. 

Yet  it  may  be  inflicted.  We  may  be  in  those  sections 
where  the  opposing  influence  reigns,  and  where  any  resist- 
ance, even  so  mild  as  declining  to  cooperate  in  the  bloody 
work  of  reenslaving  a  free  man,  may  meet  with  instant 
vengeance.  There  and  then  should  we  commit  our  ways 
unto  the  Lord,  and  meet  our  appointed  fate  in  Christian 
heroism,  in  Christian  hope.  Never  should  our  hands  be 


THE   FUGITIVE   SLAVE   BILL.  25 

stained  by  more  than  the  blood  of  the  oppressed  —  the  free- 
dom of  which  that  grasp  may  deprive  him.  Never  should 
our  ear  feel  the  everlasting  burning  of  that  cry  of  despair 
which  bursts  from  the  captured  fugitive  as  our  clutch  fas- 
tens upon  his  body  and  his  soul.  Never  should  our  hearts 
be  rived  with  the  consciousness  that  we  have  been  acces- 
sory to  the  reburial  alive  of  one  who  had  raised  himself, 
with  the  invisible  help  of  the  Divine  Rescuer,  from  that 
grave  of  living  death.  Far  better  that  the  arm  wither, 
and  the  ear  cease  forever  to  catch  any  sound  of  thought 
or  joy,  than  that  such  memories  should  curse  our  future 
hours. 

But  we  have  another  duty  forced  upon  us  by  the  State, 
which  compels  us  to  defy  the  State.  We  are  forbidden  to 
harbor  the  fugitive,  or  to  assist  him  in  his  endeavors  to 
escape  his  pursuer.  This  command  conflicts  with  the  posi- 
tive decree  of  God  none  the  less  than  those  which  demand 
our  aid  in  catching  and  binding  the  unhappy  victim.  It 
must  be  disregarded.  If  the  man  seeks  our  assistance 
whom  the  government  is  seeking  to  reduce  to  the  awful 
bondage,  from  which,  against  great  odds  and  amid  great 
perils,  he  has  effected  his  escape,  even  though  it  forbids  us 
to  oppose  its  vile  attempt,  as  servants  of  Christ  we  should 
unhesitatingly  disobey  it,  and  obey  Him.  We  must  receive 
him  to  our  fireside  as  cordially  as  we  would  receive  our 
Lord,  had  He  sought  the  shelter  of  our  roof  from  the  wicked 
rage  of  His  persecutors.  We  must  conceal  him  from  his 
pursuers.  We  must  aid  him  to  escape  from  his  native  land, 
that  is  thus  refusing  the  protection  to  its  native-born  citizens 
under  its  own  flag,  and  on  its  own  soil,  which  it  claims  for 
those  who  but  partially  adopt  it  as  their  own,  and  are  under 
the  flag  beneath  which  they  were  born,  sacrificing  these 
primal  and  dearest  rights  of  its  people  to  the  lusts  of  god- 
less traffickers  in  human  flesh. 

This   duty  may  be   attended   with   greater    peril  to   our 


26  THE   HIGHER   LAW. 

property  and  liberty  than  the  refusal  to  assist  in  his  recap- 
ture ;  but  whatever  sacrifices  attend  such  a  course,  we 
should  willingly  make  them,  feeling  that  the  release  of  our 
brethren  from  perpetual  slavery  is  far  more  than  a  temporary 
loss  of  our  own  liberty,  or  the  sacrifice  of  all  our  property. 
It  is  a  duty  we  owe  to  him  as  our  brother,  of  our  own  flesh 
and  blood,  made  in  the  same  image  as  ourselves,  by  the  same 
God,  endowed  with  the  same  nature  and  rights,  responsible 
to  the  same  justice,  and  heir  of  the  same  immortality. 

We  cannot  shun  this  command  of  God  and  be  guiltless 
concerning  our  brother.  We  cannot  obey  the  law  of  the 
land  and  have  a  conscience  void  of  offense  toward  God  and 
toward  man.  We  have  let  the  sufferer  be  stretched  again 
upon  the  rack,  from  which,  torn  and  weary,  he  has  broken 
away.  We  have  permitted  him  who  had  escaped  from  this 
most  horrible  pit,  to  be  again  plunged  into  its  abyss  of 
despair.  We  have  shut  our  eyes  to  his  outstretched  arms 
and  imploring  appeal.  We  have  withheld  our  hand  from 
the  guidance  and  support  he  entreated.  How,  then,  can  we 
meet  His  eye,  His  voice,  His  frown,  when  lie  shall  say, 
"Forasmuch  as  ye  did  it  not  unto  one  of  the  least  of  these  My 
brethren,  ye  did  it  not  unto  Me.  Depart  from  Me,  ye  that 
work  iniquity."  Not  doing  our  duty  when  it  is  thus  made 
a  proof  of  our  love  for  Christ,  is  doing  iniquity.  Beware 
how  this  sin  licth  at  your  door. 

Thus  clearly  does  the  will  and  Word  of  God  mark  out  our 
path  in  the  solemn  trials  of  the  hour. 

IV.  But  a  plea  is  set  up  by  some  teachers,  political 
and  religious,  with  much  vociferation  and  pertinacity,  that 
attracts  attention,  bewilders  the  judgment,  and  therefore 
merits  consideration. 

It  is  said,  that  although,  under  some  circumstances,  the 
course  here  laid  down  may  be  our  duty,  yet,  as  we  are 
situated,  under  a  Constitution  that,  it  is  declared,  recognizes 
this  system,  as  a  national  institution,  we  are  morally  bound 


THE   FUGITIVE    SLAVE   BILL.  27 

to  obey  the  laws  based  on  this  recognition,  even  if  they 
clash  with  the  laws  of  our  Creator. 

We  have  shown  that  civil  government  is  based  on  the 
social  faculty,  an  inferior  propensity  of  our  nature,  which 
cannot  rightly  control  the  faculties  acknowledged  to  be 
superior.  If  this  be  so,  any  peculiarities  in  the  institutions 
of  that  government,  whether  in  its  Constitution,  or  laws,  or 
their  operation,  are  inferior  in  their  very  nature  to  the  duties 
arising  from  our  higher  being,  and  can  rightfully  secure  the 
weight  of  its  approval,  only  by  conforming  to  its  character 
and  claims. 

The  Constitution  is  a  peculiarity  of  our  national  govern- 
ment, designed  to  effect  the  .union  of  many  independent 
governments  under  one  head  for  certain  specific  and  limited 
purposes.  It  is  not  generally  considered  as  minute  in  its 
authority  as  an  ordinary  government,  since  it  only  exercises 
its  power  within  specified  limits.  If  it  is  thus  limited,  the 
obligations  to  obey  its  claims  can  only  be  coextensive  with 
its  written  powers  to  make  these  claims.  Where  is  the 
written  authority  for  this  demand  ?  Where  does  the  Con- 
stitution say,  "  Congress  has  power  to  compel  the  restora- 
tion of  a  runaway  slave,  even  to  the  infliction  of  penalties 
upon  those  who  aid  in  his  escape,  or  refuse  to  aid  in  his 
return  ?  "  Is  it  so  nominated  in  the  bond  ?  Ere  we  give  up 
the  pound  of  flesh,  cut  from  the  centre  of  the  heart,  bleeding 
with  the  dying  life  of  a  murdered  Conscience,  we  demand 
the  letter  of  the  sinful  law.  According  to  the  favorite  argu- 
ment of  the  slaveholder,  on  his  most  petted  theory  of  State 
rights,  he  is  powerless  to  enact  or  execute  this  great  crime 
against  humanity  and  God.  No  step  can  he  go  beyond  the 
expressed  permissions  of  the  Constitution.  He  is  hoisted 
with  his  own  petard. 

But  if  it  be  allowed,  with  other  statesmen,  that  the  Con- 
stitution is  of  equal  authority  with  the  States,  or  even 
supreme  in  its  claims,  it  cannot  trample  on  the  rights  which 


28  THE   HIGHER  LAW. 

itself  guarantees,  nor  can  it  justly  command  the  violation  of 
that  higher  law  under  which  its  own  existence  alone 
endures.  If  the  clause  on  which  the  law  is  based  can,  or 
ought  to  be  construed  to  support  slavery,  then  that  clause 
conflicts  with  the  preamble  of  the  Constitution,  and  hence 
can  only  be  of  superior  weight  on  condition  that  it  more 
closely  conforms  to  the  law  of  God.  If  we  must  choose 
between  them,  we  must  choose  that  which  agrees  best  with 
the  law  written  on  our  hearts.  The  preamble  decrees  liberty, 
the  parenthesis  of  an  article  only  suggests  slavery.  Under 
which  king  ?  God  and  man  actually  come  together  in  one 
part  of  the  Constitution,  man  and  the  devil  are,  perhaps, 
united  in  another.  Who  is  to  be  worshiped  ? 

Many  other  legal  objections  are  made  to  the  binding 
efficiency  of  this  clause.  It  contains  no  power  to  execute 
itself,  says  one,  and  therefore  must  be  left  to  the  moral  sense 
of  the  States  themselves.  It  was  not  designed,  says 
another,  and  no  less  an  authority  than  Daniel  Webster,  to 
support  slavery,  but  only  the  system  of  apprenticeship,  then 
very  popular.  Thus  diversity  of  opinion  among  leading  and 
legal  minds  teaches  us  to  be  cautious  about  placing  the 
instrument,  and  the  laws  which  may  be  said  to  be  founded 
upon  it,  above  the  intuitions  of  our  moral  nature,  and  the 
teachings  of  the  Word  of  God.  We  should  ever  remember 
that  there  is  a  Law  above  the  Constitution,  a  Lawgiver  more 
exalted  than  Congress,  obedience  to  whose  will  alone  can 
'make  a  people  virtuous,  prosperous,  and  happy. 

It  has  become  too  much  the  fashion  of  late  to  center  all 
moral  excellence  and  natural  prosperity  in  the  Constitution. 
We  acknowledge  with  gratitude  the  debt  we  owe  our  fathers, 
and  the  value  of  the  bond,  which  unites  our  great  country. 
We  believe  that  through  these  ties  the  Maker  and  Redeemer 
of  the  race  will  display  His  attributes  more  clearly  to  mankind 
than  has  yet  been  seen.  We  believe  that  here  the  religion 
of  Christ  is  to  have  full  course  and  be  glorified.  But  while 


THE   FUGITIVE    SLAVE   BILL.  29 

such  are  our  opinions  and  desires,  we  believe  that  this 
result  can  be  consummated  only  by  bringing  the  souls  of 
men  into  subjection  to  Christ  through  their  vital  regenera- 
tion in  the  principles  of  the  gospel.  Shut  up  the  Bible 
House,  the  Tract  Depository,  the  Church  ;  break  the  presses, 
whose  frequent  issues,  like  sacred  doves,  fly  over  all  the 
land  ;  put  out  the  light  of  Christianity  in  its  renewing  power 
upon  some,  its  restraining  power  over  all ;  and  this  land  would 
soon  present  a  spectacle  to  the  eyes  of  men  and  of  angels 
more  hideous  than  any  that  glares  upon  us  from  the  worst 
epochs  of  human  history,  —  full  of  activity,  of  enterprise,  of 
intelligence,  of  ambition,  of  culture,  but  without  God,  with- 
out restraint  of  law  or  love,  a  vast  menagerie  of  untamed, 
cruel,  and  insatiable  lusts,  without  bar,  or  bolt,  or  keeper, 
—  a  tropical  luxuriance  of  civilization,  full  of  more  than 
tropical  beasts  of  passion  and  destruction.  The  Constitu- 
tion would  be  trampled  under  foot  by  all,  as  it  now  is 
in  those  States  whose  devotion  to  slavery  brings  them  into 
collision  with  its  claims,  and  a  greater  than  antediluvian 
corruption  would  cry  mightily  to  God  for  a  greater  than 
antediluvian  ruin. 

In  Christ,  not  in  the  Constitution,  must  we  put  our  trust. 
On  His  law  should  we  meditate,  not  on  that  which  again 
nails  Him,  scourged  and  bleeding,  to  the  fatal  cross.  His 
Name  should  be  our  badge  of  honor,  our  stamp  of  manhood. 
Then,  and  then  only,  shall  we  truly  render  not  only  unto 
Caesar  the  things  that  are  Caesar's,  but  unto  God,  also,  the 
tilings  that  are  God's. 

I  have  endeavored  to  explain  the  grounds  of  our  relation 
to  civil  government,  the  extent  of  the  obligation  it  imposes, 
the  modes  of  determining  its  'usurpation  of  rights  not  belong- 
ing to  it,  and  our  duty  when  it  assumes  these  unbestowed 
prerogatives  for  unrighteous  ends. 

I  entreat  you,  as  you  love  the  Lord  your  God,  as  you 
love  your  neighbor,  as  you  desire  the  approval  of  a  good 


30  THE    HIGHER  LAW. 

Conscience  now,  and  the  approving  welcome  of  Christ  the 
Judge  in  that  day,  I  entreat  you,  declare  your  hostility  to 
any  system  or  edict  that  retards  the  progress  of  the  Gospel, 
violates  the  teachings  of  the  Conscience,  defrauds  your 
neighbor  of  rights  as  truly  his  as  they  are  yours,  and  as 
far  above  all  price  for  himself,  his  wife,  his  children,  as 
they  are  to  you  and  yours,  and  that  crowns  its  height  of 
iniquity  by  blasphemously  rejecting  the  laws  most  expres- 
sive of  infinite  love  and  holiness,  the  foundations  of  the 
universe  and  of  God  Himself. 

Let  these  expiring  struggles  of  one  of  the  most  fell  de- 
stroyers of  human  happiness  meet  with  no  sympathy  from 
you.  Let  not  the  eye  melt  with  pity  over  its  narrative  of 
injuries  inflicted  by  a  just  God  and  people.  Let  not  the 
hand  of  charity  relieve  its  most  deserved  distress.  It 
assumes  these  postures  of  petition  from  the  weakness  that 
precedes  dissolution.  There  would  be  no  need  of  a  Fugi- 
tive Slave  Act,  had  not  the  conscience  of  the  North  given 
these  poor  victims  a  home  at  every  Christian  hearth-stone, 
were  not  the  hideous  crime  of  slavery  staggering  in  its 
strongholds  under  the  light  and  strength  which  Christ  and 
the  hour  are  sending  forth  upon  it  mightily. 

Be  not  deceived  by  its  new  assumption  of  national  forms 
and  phrases,  the  robes  of  Congressional  decree  and  presiden- 
tial signature.  How  will  that  signature  yet  glare  upon  its 
signer,  as  Faust's  in  the  legend.  It  will  stain  his  memory  to 
all  generations.  Give  it  no  support  in  any  form.  It  is  the 
same  fiend  that  crucified  the  Master.  It  is  ready  to  feast  its 
ravenous  appetite  upon  the  bodies  and  souls  of  your  brethren. 
If  by  your  silence  or  connivance  it  regains  its  strength,  it  will 
only  use  it  for  the  transformation  of  the  whole  country  into 
one  vast  grave  of  liberty  and  law.  It  has  been  driven  from 
the  firesides,  the  capitols,  the  churches  of  the  North.  It 
has  thrown  off  the  cloak  of  hypocritical  philanthropy  and 
piety,  of  Biblical  approval,  of  pecuniary  profit,  of  social 


THE   FUGITIVE   SLAVE   BILL.  31 

advantage,  in  which,  till  most  recently,  it  strove  to  make 
itself  divine.  It  has  fled  for  shelter  to  the  Constitution, 
hoping  to  find  under  its  folds  protection  and  opportunity  to 
regain  its  lost  dominion. 

Be  not  deceived.  If  allowed  to  coil  itself  around  that 
symbol  of  national  unity,  it  will  not  relax  its  hold  until  it 
has  pressed  all  vitality  not  only  from  the  American  Con- 
stitution, but  from  the  American  people.  If  permitted  to 
cling  to  that  altar  of  our  national  faith,  it  will  defile  the 
whole  temple  of  our  liberties  with  its  pestiferous  breath. 
Like  Laocoon's  will  be  our  condition,  like  Laocoon's  our 
fate. 

There  is  no  permanent  union  between  liberty  and  slavery. 
God  and  Satan  can  have  no  compact  nor  compromise.  One 
or  the  other  must  be  triumphant.  If  you  wish  for  the  cause 
of  God  to  prevail,  you  must  enroll  yourself  among  the  active 
opponents  of  every  institution  and  effort  designed  to  sup- 
port or  extend  the  cause  of  sin,  and  labor  earnestly  and 
persistently  for  the  righteous  victory. 

Let  your  tears  flow  for  the  oppressed  rather  than  for  the 
oppressor,  for  those  by  this  wicked  decree  made  unjustly  law- 
less, rather  than  for  those  impiously  lawful.  Think  upon  the 
long,  long  hours  which  the  poor  slave  spends  in  pining  for 
freedom  ;  think  of  the  perils  and  sufferings  he  undergoes  in 
making  his  escape  from  the  house  of  bondage.  Remember 
his  outcast  and  despised  condition  even  among  the  free, 
and,  in  some  respects,  Christian  States  to  which  he  has  fled. 
Dwell  upon  the  struggles,  fears,  toils,  sufferings,  loathings 
which  he  has  endured,  and  then  say,  if  you  be  a  Christian, 
if  you  be  a  man,  if  a  human  soul  beats  in  your  bosom,  can 
you  place  the  manacles  again  upon  those  bleeding  hands  ? 
Can  you  allow  him,  through  your  vigilance  in  assisting  in 
hi*  arrest,  or  your  negligence  in  affording  him  the  means  of 
escape,  to  be  dragged  back  in  chains  to  the  lash,  the  block, 
the  more  than  death,  from  which  God  and  his  strong  will 


32  THE   HIGHER   LAW. 

have  rescued  him  ?  Can  you  refuse  to  contribute  your 
voice  and  vote,  your  purse  and  prayers,  every  means  in 
your  possession,  or  your  influence,  to  remove  this  curse 
from  the  Church  and  the  land  ?  Lift  your  hearts  above  the 
thick  air  of  cowardice  and  crime  tjiat  to-day  invests  this 
whole  nation,  into  the  serene,  eternal  day  of  the  truth  of 
God.  Say  to  every  one  who  solicits  your  aid  in  this  work 
of  immeasurable  crime,  in  the  mighty  words  of  Freedom's 
Laureate  :  — 

"  We  hunt  your  bondmen,  flying  from  Slavery's  hateful  hell? 
Our  voices  at  your  bidding  take  up  the  bloodhounds'  yell  ? 
We  gather  at  your  summons  above  our  fathers'  grave, 
From  Freedom's  holy  altar-horns  to  tear  the  wretched  slave  ? 

"Thank  God,  not  yet  so  vilely  can  Christian  freemen  bow; 
The  spirit  of  our  early  times  is  with  us  even  now. 
Think  not  because  our  Pilgrim  blood  flows  slow,  and  calm,  and  cool, 
We  thus  can  stoop  our  chainless  neck,  our  brother's  slave  and  tool. 

"All  that  a  brother  should  do,  all  that  a  free  man  may, 
Heart,  hand,  and  purse  we  otfer  as  in  that  early  day ; 
But  that  one  dark,  loathsome  burden  ye  must  stagger  with  alone, 
And  reap  the  bitter  harvest  which  ye  yourselves  have  sown. 

"  Hold  while  ye  may  your  struggling  slaves,  and  burden  God's  free  air 
With  woman's  shriek  beneath  the  lash,  and  manhood's  stern  despair. 
Cling  closer  to  the  cleaving  curse  that  writes  upon  your  plains 
The  burden  of  the  Almighty's  wrath  against  a  land  of  chains. 

"  We  wage  no  war,  we  lift  no  arm,  we  fling  no  torch  within 
The  fire-damps  of  the  quaking  mine  beneath  your  soil  of  sin ; 
"We  leave  you  with  your  bondmen  to  wrestle,  while  ye  can, 
With  the  strong  upward  tendencies  and  godlike  soul  of  man. 

"  But  for  us  and  for  our  children,  the  vow  which  we  have  given 
For  freedom  and  humanity  is  registered  in  heaven ; 
No  slave  hunt  in  our  borders,  no  pirates  on  our  strand, 
No  fetters  for  our  brethren,  no  slave  upon  our  land." 


THE   DEATH   OF   FREEDOM: 


"THE  BEAUTY  OF  ISRAEL  is  SLAIN  UPON  THY  HIGH  FLACKS."  — 

2  Samuel  i.  19. 

"AND  SAUL  WAS  CONSENTING  UNTO  HIS  DEATH."  —  Acts  viii.  1. 
"THERE  WAS  DARKNESS  OVER  ALL  THE  LAND."  —  Matt,  xxviii.  45. 

E  gather  to-day  around  the  corpse  of  Freedom. 
Our  nation  has  given  up  the  ghost.  Her  deadly 
sickness  has  met  with  but  feeble  resistance  to  its 
progress  ;  and  to-day  it  waves  its  black  banner  in 
acknowledged  triumph  over  her  prostrate,  corrupting  form. 
The  beauty  of  Israel  is  slain  upon  her  high  places.  As  we 
bend  over  this  fallen  glory  and  strength,  I  shall  try  to  speak 
of  that  vanished  strength  and  glory,  of  the  means  and  the 
foe  that  murdered  it :  — 

"  Show  you  sweet"  Freedom's  "  wounds,  poor,  poor,  dumb  mouths! 
And  bid  them  speak  for  me." 

I  ask  you  to  consider  your  duty  as  Christians  in  this 
dreadful  hour,  and  to  see  with  the  eye  of  prophecy  either 
her  resurrection  in  a  greatness  never  before  displayed, 
like  that  of  her  Divine  Author  on  His  reappearance  from 

*  A  sermon  preached  at  Wilbraham,  Mass.,  May  28,  1854,  on  the  oc- 
casion of  the  passage  of  the  Nebraska  Bill,  by  the  Senate  of  the  United 
States,  on  the  midnight  of  Thursday,  May  25,  1854. 

3  (33) 


34  THE   DEATH   OF   FREEDOM. 

the  grave  —  a  resurrection  that  shall  send  despair  and  ruin 
through  the  ranks  of  her  murderers,  or,  if  we  are  perma- 
nently stupefied  by  the  dragon  that  has  triumphed  over  us, 
behold  with  the  same  clear  vision  the  still  more  fearful 
spectacle  of  a  contending,  ruined,  obliterated  nation. 

"  A  curse  shall  light  upon  the  limbs  of  men, 
Domestic  fury  and  fierce  civil  strife 
Will  cumber  all  the  parts  of  this  fair  land." 

You  may  say  "  This  is  a  sick  man's  dream."  "  Is  not 
this  a  free  land  ?  Has  it  not  been  consecrated  by  the  pray- 
ers and  sacred  sufferings  of  the  Pilgrims,  honored  by  the 
patriotic  valor  of  the  revolutionary  fathers,  made  illustrious 
by  the  wisdom  of  Washington  and  Jefferson,  of  Hamilton 
and  Adams  ?  Is  it  not  a  land  whose  institutions  are  based 
on  the  broadest  principles  of  liberty — a  land  of  wealth  and 
enterprise,  comfort  and  culture,  churches  and  piety  ?  And 
can  this  land  be  wrapped  in  its  grave  clothes,  and  be  even 
now  an  offense  and  a  loathing  among  the  nations  of  the 
earth  ?  Impossible !  Does  not  trade  rush  through  its 
crowded  channels  ?  Does  not  the  earth  bring  forth  abun- 
dantly, laughing  ever  with  its  munificent  harvests  ?  Does 
not  labor  '  strike  with  its  hundred  hands  at  the  golden  gates 
of  the  morning '  ?  Does  not  steam  toil  in  our  factories,  and 
whirl  its  products  over  all  the  land  ?  Do  not  sweet  bells 
call  to  -church  ?  Are  we  not  the  greatest,  freest,  happiest 
of  nations  ?  "  Alas  !  "  Gray  hairs  were  on  him,  and  he 
knew  it  not."  "  When  ye  say  peace  and  safety,  then  sud- 
den destruction  cometh  upon  him,  and  he  cannot  escape." 
Material  life  flows  on  after  the  spiritual  has  gone.  Chemical 
laws  keep  the  atoms  of  a  dead  body  for  a  while  as  compact 
as  when  it  tented  a  soul. 

There  is  no  national  life.  What  exists,  exists  in  obstruc- 
tion, weakness,  obscurity.  Last  Thursday  we  surrendered 
all  our  glorious  heritage.  We  gave  up  the  Declaration  of 


THE   NEBRASKA   BILL.  35 

Independence,  the  revolutionary  speeches,  and  battles  of 
fire  and  blood,  the  Constitution  of  our  country,  the  names 
of  our  Pilgrim  and  Puritan  ancestry,  our  hopes  and  pros- 
pects, our  morals  and  religion.  We  have  laid  them  all  at 
the  feet  of  Slavery.  We  confess  ourselves  her  slaves.  We 
open  our  gates  for  her  triumphal  march  to  unquestioned, 
universal  power. 

I  ask  no  pardon  for  bringing  this  subject  before  you  on 
this  sacred  day.  I  have  waited  till  the  strife  raging  at  the 
seat  of  government  should  end,  feeling  that  I  had  no  need 
to  stimulate  you  to  your  duty  to  pray  for  those  there  and 
then  engaged  in  the  contest,  and  that  this  word  should  be 
spoken  when  that  battle  was  decided.  I  had  hoped  against 
hope  that  the  right  would  triumph,  and  that  I  could  have 
congratulated  you  on  the  first  national  step  that  liberty  had 
taken  towards  a  final  victory.  But  that  day  is  not  yet,  if 
ever.  A  far  different  task  awaits  me,  and  by  God's  grace 
I  hope  to  discharge  it.  Let  us,  with  sackcloth  and  ashes 
upon  our  souls,  sit  around  this  corpse  of  American  Freedom  ; 
deliver  its  funeral  sermon,  and  gather,  if  we  can,  some  rea- 
sons for  its  resurrection,  and.  of  our  part  and  lot  in  bringing 
about  the  glory  of  that  distant  hour.  Let  us  try  to  an- 
swer the  question,  How  can  these  things  be? 

Five  years  ago,  or  fifty,  —  any  previous  year  since  we 
became  a  nation,  —  such  a  deed  could  not  have  happened. 
Southerner  arid  Northerner  would  have  responded  in  burn- 
ing indignation  to  a  charge  of  his  devotion  to  such  a  crime, 
"  Is  thy  servant  a  dog,  that  he  should  do  this  thing  ?  Does 
not  my  belief  that  slavery  is  an  evil,  my  sensitiveness  to 
the  honor  of  the  country  through  its  pledge  faithfully  made 
in  the  compromise  agreement  of  1820,  show  the  injustice  of 
your  imputations  ? "  And  yet  this  act  is  a  necessary 
result  of  all  previous  acts.  It  is  the  perfect  fruit  of  germs 
long  since  planted,  and  constantly  nurtured.  It  is  a  link 
in  an  iron  chain  of  our  whole  national  history.  In  the 


36  THE   DEATH   OF   FREEDOM. 

first  concession  made  to  the  slave  power,  this  monster  was 
born. 

Though  the  letter  of  the  Constitution  does  not  use  the 
word  "  slave,"  yet  in  its  representative  basis,  if  not  in  its 
fugitive  clause,  there  is  a  recognition  of  its  existence,  a 
bowing  to  its  behests.  Two  small  States,  by  their  firmness 
and  vehemence,  brought  the  other  eleven  to  their  feet,  made 
them  surrender  their  convictions,  and  obey  the  soft  voice, 
but  mailed  arm,  of  Belial.  What  though  Franklin  and  Jay 
organize  abolition  societies,  and  Washington  and  Jefferson 
favor  emancipation,  and  Madison  gets  the  word  "  slavery  " 
excluded  from  the  Constitution  ?  What  though  every  emi- 
nent man  of  the  age  is  hostile  to  the  iniquity  ?  Still  they 
let  it  find  entrance  into  their  Constitution.  It  is  there,  in- 
trenched in  the  national  fortress  ;  it  mocks  at  all  objections 
and  objectors,  and  commences  its  march  to  universal  dominion. 

When  the  sons  of  God  came  together  for  their  sublime 
deliberations,  Satan  came  also  ;  and  though,  as  in  the  days 
of  Job,  he  gained  not  every  point,  yet,  more  than  with  him, 
he  gained  the  chief,  and,  with  the  gleefulness  of  perdition,  he 
snatched  at  his  success,  and  plotted  and  waited,  waited  and 
plotted,  year  and  year,  for  larger  prizes.  lie  won  them. 

A  law  to  execute  more  perfectly  the  Fugitive  Slave  clause 
followed  within  six  years.  A  law  which  never  could  have 
passed  the  First  Congress  passed  the  Third.  A  law  which 
would  have  been  pronounced  unconstitutional  by  the  found- 
ers of  the  Constitution  triumphed  under  the  very  eyes  of 
those  founders.  And  the  hand  of  Washington  signed  his 
name  as  president  to  an  edict  which  five  years  before  he 
would  have, abhorred  himself  for  approving. 

New  territory  is  sought.  Louisiana  is  purchased.  She 
seeks  erection  into  States.  The  strife  commences  afresh. 
Again  the  slave  power  gains  all  it  wants  by  asking  for 
more ;  and  Missouri,  Louisiana,  Arkansas  wheel  into  line 
under  its  pirate  flag,  while  the  desert  lands,  which  will 


THE   NEBRASKA   BILL.  37 

not  be  needed  for  a  generation,  are  professedly  abandoned 
to  freedom,  then,  as  of  old,  driven  into  the  wilderness ; 
thence,  also  as  of  old,  to  be  driven  out  when  its  enemy 
would  make  this  desert  his  dwelling-plaee.  In  that  contro- 
versy slavery  triumphed.  Many  then  saw  that  when  those 
remoter  regions  became  the  seat  of  population,  it  would 
claim  them  as  its  own,  would  make  them  its  own.  But 
then  it  could  not  have  been  done.  The  spirit  of  the  fathers 
was  not  yet  utterly  lost.  One  half  only  of  the  fair  acres 
was  given  up  to  this  ravenous  beast.  One  half  alone  of 
its  pure  soil  was  to  be  wet  with  the  blood  of  God's  perse- 
cuted saints.  One  half  of  its  air  was  to  be  filled  with 
shrieks  under  the  scourge,  with  moans  over  sold  and  stolen 
children,  with  the  unutterable  agony  of  that  prison-house 
of  humanity.  The  anaconda  rested  content  with  its  gorged 
appetite,  which  two  hundred  thousand  square  miles  had 
momentarily  satisfied,  assured  that  those  who  had  granted 
him  so  much  would  bestow  the  balance  when  his  appetite 
returned.  His  assurance  was  well  grounded. 

But  before  that  hour  came,  the  old  religious  and  philan- 
thropic anti-slavery  sentiment,  which  had  glowed  in  the 
souls  that  burned  with  the  revolutionary  fires,  was  kindled 
afresh.  A  little,  despised  sect,  their  name  a  stench  in  the 
nostrils  of  the  country  and  the  Church,  cast  out  of  men  as 
evil,  lifted  up  their  voice  like  a  trumpet,  and  told  the  house 
of  Israel  its  transgressions,  and  the  hoxise  of  Judah  its  sins. 
They  started  from  the  only  Christian,  the  only  true  basis  — 
sympathy  with  the  slave  as  a  son  of  man  and  a  son  of 
God,  an  heir  of  heaven,  a  joint  heir  with  Jesus  Christ. 
This  was  new  doctrine  to  our  degenerate  fears  —  a  doc- 
trine no  Church  in  this  land  had  ever  fully  and  faithfully 
preached.  We  mocked  at  and  reviled  them.  We  drove 
them  from  our  churches,  halls,  and  homes.  We  haled  them 
before  our  judgment-seats.  We  issued  edicts  against  them 
from  State  and  National  Congresses,  and  executive  speeches 


38  THE   DEATH   OF   FREEDOM. 

from  the  chairs  of  governors  and  presidents.  What  the  Mad- 
isons  and  Jeffersons,  the  Hancocks  and  Storys,  would  have 
approved  was  denounced  and  proscribed  by  the  Van  Burens 
and  Everetts  of  this  generation. 

Still  they  fought  for  the  right.  It  may  be  with  lack  of 
discretion,  yet  how  shall  you  and  I  in  our  idleness  dare  to 
take  up  a  railing  accusation  against  them  ?  How  dare  you 
say  that  William  Lloyd  Garrison,  George  Thompson,  Orange 
Scott,  and  their  compeers  were  not  the  wisest  of  their 
generation  in  action,  as  they  certainly  were  in  their  fears, 
their  prophecies,  and  their  entreaties  ?  Their  errors  will 
yet  be  lost  in  the  splendor  of  their  daring,  sincerity, 
and  zeal.  If  ever  freedom  becomes  the  possession,  as  it  is 
the  birthright,  of  every  man  in  this  land,  he  who  will  be 
honored  with  the  loftiest  monument  —  a  monument  built  by 
every  hand  that  has  been  raised  against  him  —  will  be  that 
yet  hated  and  proscribed,  that  somewhat  error-led,  but  far 
more  truth-led,  man,  William  Lloyd  Garrison. 

This  stone,  cut  out  of  the  mountain  without  hands,  rolled 
by  few  but  tireless  arms,  grew,  and  grew,  until,  when  the 
slave  power  set  up  its  claim  to  national  domain,  a  new 
voice  mingled  in  the  tumults  of  the  hour,  and  made  its 
triumphs  Bunker  Hill  victories,  that  betokened  an  ultimate 
destruction. 

Again  the  anaconda  stirs.  It  demands  Texas  —  Texas 
with  a  war ;  and  it  wins.  It  claims  that  the  new  regions 
acquired  by  w#r  should  be  his,  and  they  are  given  it. 
Maddened  with  lust  and  success,  it  says,  "  Return  to  me 
my  fugitives  hiding  in  your  own  Free  States  ;  give  me 
that  nurse  and  playmate  of  your  children  ;  that  industrious 
citizen  whose  family  looks  up*  to  him  for  protection  ;  the 
minister  from  the  altar.  They  are  mine."  And  all  the 
people  hasten  to  give  them  up.  No,  not  all.  Among 
the  faithless,  faithful  stood  a  few.  Seven  thousand  were 
found  who  bent  not  the  knee  to  this  Baal  of  America. 


THE   NEBRASKA   BILL.  39 

May  they  soon  become  seventy  times  seven,  and  deliver 
the  land  from  this  idolatry  and  the  Jezreel  abominations 
which  so  fiercely  flourish  under  its  dominion. 

Even  then  the  proposition  that  has  just  been  success- 
fully carried  would  have  been  rejected  with  abhorrence. 
Great  and  little  politicians  declared  that  these  concessions 
were  made  only  because  the  Constitution  demanded  .it. 
Their  sacrifice  was  Jephtha's,  but  so  was  their  necessity, 
and  their  lamentation.  But  any  attempt  to  remove  an 
ancient  landmark,  any  disturbance  of  ancient  settlements, 
will  never  be  allowed.  No  concessions  to  slavery.  0,  no  ! 
Only  a  painful  fulfillment  of  agreements  which  our  fathers 
made,  only  a  declining  to  exasperate  our  brethren  of  the 
South  by  a  useless  proviso  ;  and  so,  by  soft  words  and  a 
flattering  tongue,  by  a  heart  that  deceived  itself,  the  gov- 
ernment became  the  bloodhound  of  the  slaveholder,  to 
track  and  catch  his  God-like  property.  So  our  vast  pos- 
sessions, acquired  by  our  blood  and  treasiire,  became  an 
Aceldama,  a  field  of  blood  unto  this  day.  And  great  men 
and  good  men  shouted  loud  hosannas  over  these  peaceful 
measures,  and  declared  that  He  who  holdeth  the  winds  in 
His  fists  would  bind  these  contending  breezes,  and  that 
there  should  be  a  great  calm. 

Ah !  the  anaconda  was  only  resting  from  his  bloody 
feasts.  Now  and  then  he  opes  his  ponderous  jaws,  and 
swallows  down,  as  a  sweet  morsel,  the  body  and  the 
soul  of  a  Long,  or  a  Sims,  some  poor  Christian  free  man 
or  free  woman.  But  its  fell  hunger  does  not  yet  gnaw 
within.  And  we  only  said,  "It  is  the  price  of  the  Union, 
this  precious  Union.  It  is  the  condition  of  our  country's 
existence.  Throw  the  slave  Daniel  into  the  Southern  den 
of  lions.  Our  farms,  our  stores,  our  schools,  must  flourish 
even  if  a  few  negroes  suffer  slightly.  They  are  half 
brutes.  They  cannot  feel  the  chains,  the  whip,  the  auction- 
block,  the  breaking  of  heart-strings,  the  fiery  stake  of 


40  THE   DEATH   OF   FREEDOM. 

death.  What  are  they  compared  with  our  great  and 
glorious  Union  ?  '  Off  with  their  heads  !  ' :  And  on  we 
marched,  and  boasted,  and  declared  ourselves  the  stan- 
dard-bearers of  the  race,  and  called  on  Europe  to  witness 
our  glory,  to  fall  at  our  feet,  and  follow  our  illustrious 
leadership  to  universal  democracy.  But  that  great  serpent 
awoke ;  nay,  rather,  he  never  slept.  He  bided  his  time ; 
and  when  our  boasts  were  loudest,  and  political  calm  the 
deepest,  he  said,  "  Give  up  that  useless  Missouri  Compro- 
mise. It  aggravates  the  South.  It  does  you  no  good. 
It  will  make  no  difference  in  the  end.  Slavery  can  never 
flourish  in  those  territories.  Don't  wound  our  feelings  by 
adhering  to  its  punctilios.  You  very  generously  aban- 
doned the  Wilmot  Proviso,  because  of  our  sensitiveness. 
Do  the  generous  thing  once  more." 

We  were  struck  aghast.  "  'Give  up  the  Compromise  '? 
Open  the  gates  of  the  Eden  of  the  continent  to  this  river 
of  death,  that  has  burned  and  blackened  so  many  fair 
fields  ?  Never !  The  Thirteen  States  fought  eight  years 
rather  than  submit  to  foreign  tyranny.  We  will  fight  as 
long  rather  than  surrender  a  domain  twice  as  large  as 
the  Colonies  embraced  to  a  domestic  tyranny  immeasur- 
ably worse."  Loud  rose  the  cry  :  "  It  is  ours.  It  shall 
remain  ours."  And  behold,  while  we  cry,  our  representa- 
tives hold  it  out  to  the  greedy  clutch  of  the  slaveholder. 
It  is  grasped.  It  is  swallowed,  and  to-day  the  arch 
tempter  is  the  sole  ruler  in  that  Paradise.  Freedom, 
intelligence,  and  enterprise,  art,  civilization,  and  Chris- 
tianity, every  grace  and  strength  of  humanity,  have  fled, 
as  the  angelS  that  frequented  the  holy  Eden,  and  Satan, 
sin,  and  death  revel  in  its  desecrated  forests  and  prairies, 
their  unquestioned  possession. 

Thus  these  things  are.  Not  by  one  step,  nor  two,  have 
we  reached  this  goal,  but  by  a  practical  imbruting  of  the 
conscience,  by  yielding  to  the  demands  of  this  awful 


THE   NEBRASKA   BILL.  41 

iniquity,  by  violently  opposing  and  abusing  its  earnest 
enemies.  Had  not  these  members  of  Congress  fought 
against  the  anti-slavery  movement  with  .furious  passion, 
they  would  not  be  found  to-day  enacting  this  bill.  The 
light  that  was  in  them  is  darkness ;  and  how  great  is  that 
darkness !  What  an  awful  depth  upon  depth  of  dark- 
ness !  Great  men  in  the  pulpit  and  the  forum  set  the  bad 
example  of  mocking  at  the  higher  law,  and  now  their 
bayers  on  deride  the  >  very  law  which  they  so  idolatrously 
worship.  So  comes  Pandemonium,  no  law,  but  Chaos  and 
old  Night. 

"Nor  public  flame,  nor  private,  dares  to  shine; 
Nor  human  spark  is  left,  nor  glimpse  divine ! 
Lo,  thy  dread  empire,  Chaos,  is  restored ; 
Light  dies  before  thy  uncreating  word  :    . 
Thy  hand,  great  Anarch,  lets  the  curtain  fall, 
And  universal  darkness  buries  all." 

Verily  as  we  have  sown,  so  do  we  reap  this  day.  Saul 
is  consenting  to  the  martyr  of  this  first-born  of  Christianity. 
Saul,  the  Pharisee  of  Pharisees,  we,  who  tithe  mint  and 
anise  and  cummin,  and  neglect  the  weightier  matters 
of  the  law,  judgment  and  mercy  and  truth,  we  stand 
by  while  the  murderous  rocks  are  being  hurled  at  its 
head  ;  we  share  in  the  robber's  spoils  —  its  sacred  lands, 
with  all  their  hidden  but  real  wealth  of  happiness  and 
prosperity.  You  and  I,  my  brethren,  have  too  much  to  do 
with  this  dire  act.  Have  you  not  said,  "  Party  first,  lib- 
erty afterward  "  ?  Have  you  not  cried,  "  Union,  Union, 
Union,  now  and  forever,"  carefully  omitting  the  word 
"  Liberty  /'  which  alone  makes  that  Union  an  honor  or  a 
blessing  ?  Have  you  not  filled  your  ears  with  the  shouts, 
"  Our  Nation,  however  bounded,  and  however  niled,"  so 
that  you  could  not  and  would  not  hear  the  wail  of  your 
oppressed  fellow-citizens,  that  heart-broken  entreaty  from 
the  depths  of  that  vast  dungeon,  covering  a  half  million 


42  THE   DEATH   OF   FREEDOM. 

of  square  miles  —  "Am  I  not  a  man  and  a  brother?" 
Have  you  not  said,  "The  slave  belongs  to  his  master; 
how  can  I  interfere  ?  "  Have  you  not  acknowledged  the 
right  of  man  to  say  to  his  brother,  his  sister,  "  Thou 
art  my  property,  to  be  worked,  whipped,  starved,  sold, 
ravished,  killed,  as  I  will  ? "  Have  you  not  forgotten 
often  in  your  daily  prayers  to  pray  for  those  in  bonds  as 
bound  with  them  ?  In  insolence  of  heart  have  you  not 
despised  "  God's  image  cut  in  ebony  ;  "  ay,  cut  in  ivory 
too,  if  that  seems  to  you  the  more  precious  ?  for  the  blue- 
eyed,  yellow-haired  Saxon,  no  less  than  his  swarthier 
brother,  groans  to-day  in  that  prison-house.  Have  you 
not  joined  in  jeers  and  slanders  against  the  abolitionists, 
and  given  ground  for  the  remark  of  a  senator  from  Georgia, 
Mr.  Toombs,  but  last  Thursday,  that  "  the  government  has 
but  little  to  fear  from  the  abolitionists.  Their  greatest 
achievements  have  been  to  raise  mobs  of  fugitives  and 
free  negroes,  and  to  incite  them  to  murder  and  other 
crimes,  and  their  exploits  generally  end  in  subornation  of 
perjury,  to  escape  the  criminal  courts.  The  whole  concern 
is  not  worth  an  ounce  of  powder." 

Have  you  not  apologized  for,  defended,  and  even  ap- 
plauded the  system  of  slavery,  commending  the  graces 
of  the  masters,  the  submission,  contentment,  and  even 
happiness  of  the  slave  ?  Have  you  not  cherished  a  pride 
of  caste,  declared  complexion  a  Heaven-appointed  barrier 
of  separation  between  the  children  of  Adam,  a  great  gulf, 
across  which  no  white  and  wealthy  Dives  could  pass  to 
mingle  in  perfect  unity  of  feeling  and  life  with  a  black 
or  tawny  Lazarus,  barbarous,  beggarly,  and  sore-smitten, 
as  you  saw  and  said,  albeit  he  was  even  then  lying  in 
Abraham's  bosom,  the  best  beloved  of  all  his  children  ? 
Have  you  not  thus  declared  the  diversity  of  the  human 
race,  and  given  your  sinful  aversion  the  authority  of  a 
divine  decree  ? 


THE   NEBRASKA   BILL.  43 

Let  him  that  is  without  sin  among  us  cast  the  first  stone 
at  those  lofty  in  position  and  power,  who  but  give  the 
logical  and  inevitable  conclusion  to  these  feelings  ;  who 
say,  "The  negro  has  no  identity  of  rights  with  the  white," 
as  you  say  he  has  none  of  blood  ;  "  the  abolitionist  is  a 
madman,  scattering  firebrands,  arrows,  and  death.  Money 
is  everything.  Make  money.  Extend  slavery.  Crush  out 
abolitionism  !  "  And  it  is  done.  In  their  grand  if  gloomy 
palace  of  hell  sit  these  slave  masters  of  the  people,  all  of 
whom  are  their  slaves,  and  most  of  whom,  if  of  white 
faces,  hug  their  chains  and  kiss  their  conquerors'  feet. 
They  exult,  as  did  the  Pandemonium  chiefs  over  their  mag- 
nificent structure.  They  exclaim  with  the  Babylonian  mon- 
arch, "  Is  not  this  great  Babylon  that  I  have  builded  ?  " 
"  Surely  all  the  principalities  and  powers,  all  the  offices  and 
honor  of  the  American  continent,  shall  be  ours,  and  ours 
forever."  They  heed  not  the  footstep  of  the  descending 
God  ;  they  hear  not  that  avenging  voice  whispering  in  their 
heart  of  hearts,  "  Thou  fool,  this  night  thy  soul  shall  be 
required  of  thee  ;  "  then  what  becomes  of  thy  stores  of 
power,  pomp,  and  pride  ? 

"  An  answer  sweeps  through  the  troubled  night 
With  a  shout  for  the  slave  and  a  shout  for  the  right. 
Hear  ye  not,  hear  ye  not,  through  your  marble  arch, 
The  iron  tramp  of  the  millions  march? 
The  earthquake  awakes  in  a  giant  start, 
And  breaks  the  chain  which  has  bound  his  heart." 

By  such  slow  and  steady  approaches  the  citadel  of  liber- 
ty has  been  enclosed,  undermined,  taken.  America  is  no 
longer  a  free  nation.  No  longer  can  she  boast  that  in 
her  borders  the  rights  of  man  are  inviolable.  Here  may 
the  oppressed  find  liberty,  and  the  heavy  laden  rest.  Not 
in  obedience  to  constitutional  scruples,  not  by  a  sudden 
surprise,  temptation,  or  fall,  has  this  destruction  come  upon 
her.  This  act  is  against  all  constitutional  statements  or 


44  THE   DEATH   OF   FREEDOM. 

suggestions.  She  gives  her  hand,  if  not  her  heart,  to  the 
vote.  So  far  from  being  the  first  triumph  of  the  Tempter, 
it  is  the  autumnal  fruit  of  seeds  sown  by  our  fathers'  hands, 
and  nurtured  and  enriched  by  the  assiduous  culture  of 
three  generations.  From  the  ordinance  of  1787,  which 
admitted  slavery  to  all  our  country  south  of  the  Ohio,  by 
forbidding  it  north  of  that  line,  and  which  built  up  the 
enormous  power  of  this  crime  in  four  of  the  largest  and 
most  influential  of  our  Slave  States,  —  Kentucky,  Tennessee, 
Alabama,  and  Mississippi, — we  have  descended  to  the  ordi- 
nance of  1854,  which  prohibits  freedom  in  all  the  territory 
that  had  been  pledged  sacredly  to  liberty,  which  practically 
aud  intentionally  forbids  any  restrictions  on  the  march  of 
this  demon  over  any  part  of  the  national  domain. 

There  is  no  national  life  in  us.  Before  the  world,  before 
God,  we  stand  to-day  in  a  blacker  infamy  than  rests  upon 
any  other  power.  We  have  become  the  basest  of  king- 
doms. The  lowest  of  the  nations  of  the  earth  look  down 
upon  us.  France  has  liberated  its  slaves  in  Algiers  and 
the  West  Indies.  Russia  has  emancipated  its  serfs,  Mexico 
its  citizens.  Brazil  discourages  slavery  and  encourages 
its  extirpation.  Turkey  represses  this  accursed  trade. 
We  alone,  of  all  Christian,  of  all  heathen  lands,  avow  the 
divine  origin  of  slavery,  and  accord  it  unlimited  life.  We 
alone  tear  down  the  wall  of  separation  our  fathers  had 
built,  and  say  to  the  sea  of  unspeakable  crime  and  agony, 
"  No  longer  shall  it  be  said  to  thee,  by  man  or  God,  '  Here 
shall  thy  proud  waves  be  stayed  ;  '  but  dash,  roar,  roll 
onward  and  onward,  engulfing  all  those  vast  and  blessed 
regions  with  an  arkless  deluge  of  death." 

If  Jefferson  could  say,  in  his  day,  "  I  tremble  for  my 
country  when  I  remember  that  God  is  just,"  what  must  we 
say,  who  have  seen  that  country  descend  from  one  point  of 
baseness  to  another,  until  now  African  cruelty,  Egyptian 
degradation,  or  Roman  corruption,  in  the  heights  of  their 


THE   NEBRASKA   BILL.  45 

excesses,  were  hardly  more  vile,  were  far  less  guilty  ?  There 
should  be  no  more  Fourth  of  July,  —  its  celebration  is  a 
mockery ;  no  more  reading  of  the  Declaration  of  Indepen- 
dence, —  we  are  independent  no  longer  :  the  slave's  collar 
and  manacles  burden  our  neck  and  arms  ;  no  more  boast  of 
our  Christianity  as  a  nation,  when  our  President  and  Con- 
gress exceed  Nero  and  his  senate  in  pagan  edicts  and 
crimes  ;  no  more  vaunts  of  our  greatness  among  the  nations 
of  the  earth.  They  have  heard  of  our  shame,  they  have 
seen  it,  and  they  rejoice  in  it.  We,  raised  to  heaven  by 
free  institutions  and  all  the  culture  that  has  ever  yet  been 
given  to  man,  have  voluntarily  cast  ourselves  down  to  hell. 
Before  God  and  all  the  world,  America  stands  to-day  the 
propagandist  of  slavery,  the  advocate  and  practicer  of  the 
dogma  that  man  can,  and  should,  and  shall  own  his  fellow- 
man  ;  that  we  are  endowed  by  the  Creator,  not  with  inalien- 
able rights  of  life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness, 
but  of  murder,  bondage,  and  the  destruction  of  happiness  ; 
that  there  is  no  sacredness  in  the  marriage  tie,  no  duty  to 
believe  in  or  regard  the  affections  of  father  or  mother,  hus- 
band or  wife,  brother  or  sister;  that  the  "peculiar"  and 
very  domestic  "  institution  "  of  home  life  and  love  is  con- 
fined exclusively  to  those  who  have  not  a  drop  of  African 
blood  in  their  veins ;  that  the  human  auction-block,  the 
whipping-post,  the  branding-iron,  the  bloodhound,  the  gal- 
lows-tree, and  the  stake  —  in  a  word,  every  barbarism  — 
are  the  true  elements  of  a  nation's  growth  and  glory. 
These  are  the  doctrines  enacted  by  the  present  Congress  of 
the  United  States,  approved  by  our  present  President,  and 
published  to  the  world  as  the  consummate  flower  of  Chris- 
tian civilization  in  this  land  of  the  Puritan,  Huguenot,  and 
Quaker,  in  the  year  of  our  Lord  and  Savior  Jesus  Christ, 
the  eighteen  hundred  and  fifty-fourth.  The  pen  that  put 
the  figures  of  that  date  of  our  redemption  upon  this  satanic 
bill  must  have  shrunk  from  the  profanity,  if  the  heart  and 


46  THE   DEATH   OF   FREEDOM. 

hand  that  it  served  were  so  depraved  as  to  be  unconscious 
of  the  horrible  sin. 

The  deepest  depth  is  reached.  There  may  be  a  table- 
land of  darkness  upon  which  future  legislators  and  execu- 
tives shall  erect  other  trophies  of  their  wickedness,  —  the 
abolition  of  all  laws  which  now  prevent  the  bringing  or 
keeping  and  trading  of  slaves  in  the  Free  States  ;  the  rein- 
statement of  the  African  slave  trade  —  a  trade  far  less  cruel 
than  that  which  is  regularly  carried  on  under  the  protection 
of  our  government  between  Baltimore  and  New  Orleans  ; 
the  enslaving  of  white  laborers  as  well  as  those  of  the  darker 
hue,  who  now  pine  in  chains  ;  the  acquisition  of  Cuba  by 
robbery  or  by  open  war  with  Spain,  as  we  fought  with 
Mexico,  to  win  a  new  region  for  this  crime  ;  and,  at  last, 
and  not  improbably,  a  war  with  Great  Britain,  to  prevent 
Canada's  harboring  the  fugitives  from  our  oppression. 
Then  cometh  the  end  —  a  return  to  violence,  ignorance, 
idleness,  and  bestiality  surpassed  only  by  those  in  that 
"outer  darkness,"  the  "dogs,  sorcerers,  whoremongers,  mur- 
derers, idolaters,  and  whosoever  loveth  and  maketh  a  lie." 

Is  this  our  future  ?  Must  our  star  be  hurled  from  the 
heavens  up  whose  steeps  it  was  marching  with  such  a 
rapid,  vigorous,  and  lustrous  step  ?  Shall  our  fine  gold 
become  dim,  our  name,  long  the  terror  of  tyrants,  be- 
come their  byword,  our  strength  for  the  oppressed  of  all 
lands  change  to  a  rotten  reed  which  pierceth  the  hand  that 
leans  upon  it,  and  snaps  while  it  stings  ?  This  we  are ! 
It  is  no  shall  be.  The  eclipse  is  on  the  sun.  Darkness  is 
now  over  all  the  land.  The  glow  is  faded  from  the  heavens, 
and  all  isles  and  continents,  even  to  distantmost  Asia  and 
Africa,  gaze  with  awe  and  sadness  at  the  pale,  cold  light 
which  we  shed  upon  their  dreary  realms.  But  yesterday 
the  nation 

"  Stood  against  the  world;  now  lies  she  here, 
And  none  so  poor  to  do  her  reverence." 


THE   NEBRASKA   BILL.  47 

But  is  the  eclipse  total  ?  Is  there  not  a  ring  —  a  faint 
and  little  ring — of  light  around  the  blackened  orb,  that  will 
yet  re-cover  all  its  face  with  glory  ?  Will  not  this  dark- 
ness pass  away,  and  the  true  light  again  shine  ?  Step  by 
step  has  this  obscuration  moved  on,  a  small  segment  in 
1789,  the  whole  face  in  1854.  The  shadowy  edge  of  bright- 
ness gives  token  of  a  brighter  day  to-morrow.  The  admin- 
istration triumphed,  but  its  forces  were  divided;  and  had 
not  its  foes  come  to  the  rescue  it  would  have  failed  in  its 
attempt.  Its  own  party  threw  a  larger  Northern  vote 
against  it  than  for  it.  A  hundred  Democrats  were  found 
to  resist  the  crime  —  a  hundred  in  a  body  of  whom  almost 
every  one  was  elected  on  a  pro-slavery  platform.  This  is 
a  star  in  the  midnight,  a  ray  of  morning  lying  athwart  the 
denseness  of  gloom. 

But  not  upon  this  hundred  do  we  rely  for  deliverance. 
Behind  them  is  a  mass  of  millions,  whose  eyes  are  freed 
from  the  scales  of  party  obligations,  whose  souls  thrill  with 
novel  sympathies  for  their  brother  in  chains,  whose  indig- 
nant voices  have  gone  up  to  God  in  petition  after  petition 
against  this  outrage,  who  have  seen  the  slave  struggling 
for  freedom  before  their  own  eyes,  branded  and  bleeding, 
but  still  defying  his  robbers  ;  who  have  read  tales,  real  or 
fictitious, — the  latter  far  less  than  the  reality, — that  burned 
through  their  hearts  like  fire,  filled  them  with  an  agony 
of  sensibility  and  sympathy,  and  nerved  them  with  an  ab- 
horrence of  slavery  and  a  resolution  to  destroy  it.  This 
mighty  mass  are  recognizing  their  rights  as  members  of  the 
great  Republic.  Their  numbers  grow  rapidly  ;  their  spirit, 
and  resolve,  and  consciousness  of  power  outrun  in  increase 
the  additions  to  their  adherents.  They  are  almost  stupe- 
fied at  this  awful  horror.  They  feel  that  it  is  beyond  the 
scope  of  dreams.  But  they  are  not  unnerved  by  the  spec- 
tacle. They  are  preparing  to  confront  it  boldly,  legally, 
effectively. 


48  THE   DEATH   OF   FREEDOM. 

Behind  the  Congressional  hundred,  behind  these  masses, 
rocking  with  prophetic  throes,  stands  the  Church  of  Christ, 
too  often,  alas!  dumb  and  paralyzed  before  great  and  gen- 
eral sins,  whose  robes  much  blood  of  the  innocents  stains, 
who  in  this  long  conflict  has  too  frequently  forgotten  that 
she  was  the  Church  of  Christ,  and  has  once  and  again  be- 
come the  synagogue  of  Satan,  and  who  is  even  now  far  from 
representing  perfectly  her  Author  and  Founder,  and  only 
Life.  For  this  crime  has  polluted  the  sanctuary,  and  set  up 
the  abomination  that  maketh  desolate  in  the  most  holy 
place.  Yet  still,  with  all  her  faults  and  failures,  she  is  by 
far  the  best  organization  among  men  for  the  extirpation  of 
national  no  less  than  individual  sins.  The  Church  of  Christ 
abolished  idolatry,  gladiatorial  shows,  Roman  and  European 
slavery.  She  is  beating  down  with  her  gigantic  arm  the 
strongholds  of  modern  idolatry.  She  is  moving  into  the  van, 
and  marshaling  the  hosts  against  this  evil. 

Slowly  but  surely  she  is  emerging  from  those  waters  of 
pollution  into  which  she  was  led  by  a  criminal  love  of  the 
world,  or  a  delusive  dream  that,  by  conforming  to  the  lusts  of 
the  flesh,  she  could  deliver  souls  from  those  lusts.  We  have 
all  gone  down  into  Egypt,  holy  Jacob  and  Joseph  as  well 
as  worldly-minded  Simeon,  cruel  Levi,  changeable  Reuben, 
and  carnal-hearted  Judah.  From  Egypt  we  are  returning. 
Here  comes  an  individual  church  and  pastor,  there  a  confer- 
ence, or  association,  or  synod  of  churches  and  pastors,  until 
this  act  has  shot,  like  a  crystallizing  force,  through  Church 
and  ministry,  transforming  multitudes  averse  to  agitation 
and  abolitionism  into  the  warmest  friends  of  both. 

It  has  opened  the  eyes  of  the  apologists  of  the  system, 
and  those  opposed  to  any  attempt  to  extirpate  it,  to  the 
truth  long  since  seen  by  the  clear-eyed  friends  of  Freedom, 
that  Slavery  cannot  remain  at  ease,  eating  its  bread  in 
quietness  and  singleness  of  heart.  It  must  work.  Like 
its  father,  the  devil,  it  ever  goeth  about  seeking  whom  it 


THE   NEBRASKA   BILL.  40 

may  devour.  It  encroaches  on  the  sacred  territory  of  the 
Church.  It  ascends  from  her  obscure  layman  and  preacher  to 
her  pillars  in  pew  and  pulpit.  It  climbs  into  the  high  seats 
of  the  bishopric,  paling  the  fires  and  blackening  the  bright- 
ness of  the  holy  breastplate  of  the  highest  of  the  priests 
of  God.  It  has  entered  her  organizations,  and  t  disciplined 
her  discipline.  Thus  it  stood  in  the  Church,  as  it  now  does 
in  the  State,  unquestioned,  uncontrolled,  supreme  in  author- 
ity and  power.  From  this  seat  it  has  measurably  fallen, 
from  that  of  the  State  may  it  fall  speedily  and  forever. 

This  act  will  give  an  impetus  to  the  work  of  Church  puri- 
fication such  as  a  smaller  evil  might  not  have  done.  May 
God  hasten  the  day  when  every  Christian  Church  shall  say 
to  her  slaveholding  member,  "  Repent,  and  forsake  that 
sin.  Let  your  oppressed  go  free,  or  release  my  hand  from 
the  grasp  of  Christian  fellowship.  Leave  the  holy  inclosure 
of  those  who  would  fain  live  unspotted  from  the  world. 
Stand  without  until  you  can  come  in  as  one  who  shows  that 
he  loves  God  by  loving  his  neighbor  as  himself."  This  na- 
tional shame,  like  the  act  of  the  Church  forbidding  colored 
testimony,  will  convert  thousands  of  the  timid  into  the  brave, 
and  incite  every  communion  to  the  work  of  purging  itself 
and  its  country  of  the  fearful  sin. 

In  front  of  the  sacramental  hosts  of  God's  elect  appears 
the  Captain  of  our  salvation.  He  has  said  the  wickedness 
of  the  wicked  shall  come  to  an  end.  He  has  declared  He 
will  give  deliverance  to  the  captive,  and  open  the  prison' 
door  to  the  bound.  He  stands  with  the  gathering  multi- 
tude, bringing  their  hearts  into  closest  sympathy  with  His 
purposes,  and  inspiring  them  with  a  zeal  and  energy  that, 
through  their  communication,  descend  on  less  lofty  and  holy 
masses  like  a  mighty  rushing  wind  that  fills  every  heart, 
however  ignoble  in  its  general  tendency,  , however  unbe- 
lieving concerning  its  own  salvation,  with  these  most  Christly 
principles  and  resolves. 
4 


50  THE   DEATH   OF  FREEDOM. 

Are  these  sufficient  grounds  for  hope  ?  We  see  the 
close-knitted  squadrons  of  error.  Their  faces  are  flushed 
with  victory.  Their  passion  for  conquest  is  growing  with 
wonderful  rapidity  by  its  late  successes.  They  do  not 
stand  still.  Far  from  it.  Does  a  victorious  army,  in  an 
enemy's  country,  halt  and  surrender  on  its  field  of  vic- 
tory ?  They  march  on.  Ere  the  coming  month  is  over, 
your  ear,  if  watchful,  will  catch  the  pass-word  from  lip  to 
lip  in  the  presidential  mansion,  the  Senate  Chamber,  the 
Hall  of  Representatives,  "  Forcible  occupation  of  St.  Do- 
mingo, that  Hayti  may  be  returned  to  its  chains  ;  war  with 
Spain,  that  Cuba  may  be  ours  ;  yet  another  slice  of  Mexico 
for  our  slaves."  Before  this  Congress  rises,  if  the  black 
cloud  of  war  does  not  again  shut  down  upon  the  land  by 
the  decree  of  President  and  Senate,  all  this  may  be  done. 
The  future  is  full  of  portents  dire.  The  wicked  rule  ;  the 
righteous  are  hidden. 

But  the  growth  of  the  anti-slavery  sentiment  has  been 
more  rapid  and  strong  than  that  of  pro-slavery  dominion. 
So  far  as  opinion  is  concerned  —  and  that  is  very  far  —  the 
North  is  disinthralled.  Opinion  will  soon  ripen  into  convic- 
tion of  duty,  and  conviction  work  itself  into  action.  \Ve 
shall  see,  I  hope,  men  of  every  political  and  religious  faith 
bound  together  by  one  feeling,  one  vow,  one  act,  never  to 
rest  from  battle  till  our  government  is  emancipated  from 
this  sin.  Not  only  may  we  see  this  feeling  in  the  North, 
'but  the  Spirit  of  God  and  the  Conscience  of  man  are  bound 
])y  no  sectional  limits.  Over  that  vast  region  the  light  is 
breaking.  May  it  prove  the  light  of  the  morning.  A  free 
press,  full  of  denunciations  against  slavery,  lives  and  even 
flourishes  in  Virginia.  The  people  of  Kentucky  thrust  a 
slaveholding  murderer  from  their  borders.*  He  is  pre- 
served from  a.  felon's  fate  solely  in  consequence  of  his 

*  Matt.  Ward,  of  Louisville,  Kentucky,  who  killed  Professor  Butler  for 
chastising  Ward's  brother,  who  was  one  of  his  pupils. 


THE   NEBRASKA   BILL.  51 

wealth  and  rank,  even  as  every  such  murderer  is  through- 
out that  whole  region.  But  he  alone  of  them  all  has  fled 
before  the  indignation  of  the  people.  If  he  is  not  the  last 
who  murders  school  teachers  as  they  would  vermin,  he  is 
not  the  last,  we  trust,  who  will  find  a  popular  verdict  that 
shall  override  the  unjust  wrestings  of  the  courts,  and  vindi- 
cate, if  roughly,  the  majesty  of  law,  and  the  rights  of  the 
humblest  citizen. 

Frequent  cases  of  manumission,  the  increased  dissemina- 
tion through  the  South  of  anti-slavery  books  and  papers, 
their  more  intimate  connection  with  a  North  becoming  purer 
and  purer  with  every  year  and  every  trial,  —  these  blessed 
signs  betoken  the  coming  of  the  resurrection  morn  to  that 
benighted  region,  to  our  now  benighted  land.  Mighty  as 
stands  this  iniquity  to-day,  like  Nebuchadnezzar's  image, 
its  feet  are  clay.  Speedily  shall  its  power  vanish  away. 
Speedily,  but  not  this  month,  nor  year.  Perhaps  the  war 
may  be  one  of  many  years  ;  it  has  already  been  ;  but  it 
shall  vanish  away.  Not  in  an  unexpected  or  unseen  man- 
ner ;  not  by  some  miraculous  act  in  which  man  meddles  not, 
but  by  one  effort,  prolonged,  intense,  gradually  successful. 
It  has  grown  by  progressive  acts.  So  it  may  die. 

A  few  reflections  will  conclude  our  sad  service. 

First.  This  dark  hour  should  fill  us  with  humiliation. 
Perhaps  you  have  been  very  valiant  for  the  truth,. now  pros- 
trate under  insulting  feet,  and  you  may  presume  on  that 
faithfulness  to  reproach  your  neighbor  for  his  idleness  and 
recreancy.  But  it  is  not  the  false  so  much  as  the  faithful 
that  in  such  hours  cast  themselves  penitently  and  with  self- 
reproaches  before  God.  When  Jerusalem  lay  a  desolation, 
upon  which  the  curse  of  God  had  been  executed,  it  was  the 
elders  of  the  daughter  of  Zion,  not  the  blasphemers  and 
idlers,  who  cast  dust  upon  their  heads,  and  bowed  before 
the  Lord.  It  was  not  some  worldly  and  timid  Jew,  captive 
to  his  fears  and  lust  more  than  to  his  Babylonish  master, 


52  THE   DEATH   OF   FREEDOM. 

but  the  holy  Daniel,  that  said,  "  I  set  my  face  unto  the  Lord 
God  to  seek  by  prayer  and  supplication,  with  fasting,  and 
sackcloth,  and  ashes  ;  and  I  prayed  unto  the  Lord  my  God, 
and  said,  '  0  Lord,  the  great  and  dreadful  God,  we  have 
sinned,  and  have  committed  iniquity,  and  have  done  wickedly, 
and  have  rebelled  even  by  departing  from  thy  precepts  and 
from  thy  judgments.  0  Lord,  to  us  belongeth  confusion  of 
face,  to  our  kings,  to  our  princes,  and  to  our  fathers,  be- 
cause we  have  sinned  against  thee.' '  Such  were  the  tears 
and  confessions  of  this  man  of  God ;  not  Pharisaic  in  ex- 
clusiveness,  but  deeply  conscious  of  his  own  sins.  So  the 
zealous  Nehemiah,  when  his  people  had  gone  backward, 
says,  "  I  sat  down  and  wept,  and  mourned  certain  days, 
and  fasted  and  prayed  before  the  God  of  heaven ;  and 
said,  '  I  pray  before  thee  now,  day  and  night,  for  the  chil- 
dren of  Israel,  thy  servants,  and  confess  the  sins  which  we 
have  sinned  against  thee ;  but  I  and  my  father's  house 
have  sinned.' ' 

Even  so  must  we,  my  brethren,  fall  before  our  God,  and 
confess  that  we  have  sinned.  Have  we  done  our  whole 
duty  always  ?  Have  we  wrestled  with  God  as  fervently  as 
we  have  with  men  ?  Have  we  sought  his  aid  as  much  as 
that  of  our  brother  ?  Have  we  not  sometimes  forgotten  the 
slave  in  our  contest  for  local  and  temporary  political  tri- 
umphs ?  The  judgment  of  Heaven  is  upon  us.  Let  us 
imitate  the  elders  of  Jerusalem,  the  godly  Daniel,  arid 
Nehemiah,  and  pour  out  tears  and  prayers  before  their  God 
and  ours,  who  alone  casts  down,  who  alone  can  build  up. 

Second.  What  works  shall  be  added  to  these  penitential 
words  ?  The  crown  has  fallen  from  the  head  of  our  coun- 
try. She  sits  in  the  dust.  The  heathen  have  come  into  the 
inheritance  of  our  Christian  fathers,  and  all  our  pleasant 
places  lie  waste.  The  fetter  is  riveted  the  more  firmly  on 
the  neck  of  your  poor  brother  and  sister,  and  shouts  of 
hellish  exultation  over  this  victory  go  up  this  sacred  day 


THE   NEBRASKA   BILL.  53 

around  the  slave-pens  of  Richmond,  Alexandria,  Baltimore, 
and  the  great  multitude  of  similar  prison-houses  of  death. 
The  saintly  victim  within  hears  their  notes  of  blasphemous 
glee,  and,  learning  the  cause,  his  faint  hopes  fall,  and 

despair 

"Closes  around,  above  him  as  a  shroud." 

Christian,  what  is  your  duty  ?  —  to  contend  about  tariif 
or  free  trade?  to  hold  back,  in  Pharisaic  pride,  from  asso- 
ciation with  publicans  and  sinners,  as  you  call  those  of 
the  party  opposite  your  own  ?  to  strive  about  words  to  no 
profit  but  to  the  subverting  —  the  utter  and  eternal  sub- 
verting —  of  their  hearers  and  speakers  ?  Is  it  to  say, 
"  That  party  which  represents  freedom  is  bigoted,  fanati- 
cal, of  one  idea  ?  "  Better  have  one  idea  than  none.  Do 
you  declare,  "  I  have  ridiculed  and  fought  it.  I  cannot 
now  join  myself  to  it.  I  have  friends  and  kindred  involved 
in  this  crime.  I  cannot  openly  oppose  their  course  or 
wound  their  feelings  "  ?  "  Whosoever  loveth  father  or  moth- 
er, husband  or  wife,  brother  or  sister,  more  than  Me,  cannot 
be  My  disciple."  Is  not  the  slave,  too,  your  father  and 
mother,  your  brother  and  sister  ?  Does  not  this  very  tie 
of  blood  bind  you  to  the  oppressed  as  closely  as  to  the 
oppressor  ?  In  Adam,  in  Noah,  you  are  of  one  blood  ;  in 
Christ,  of  one  redemption. 

Will  you  see  this  gigantic  cruelty  marching  northward, 
invading  your  threshold,  subduing  your  State,  possessing 
confessedly,  triumphantly,  our  whole  land  and  our  whole 
life  ?  Christian  man,  Christian  woman,  ask  for  the  straight- 
est  path  of  duty,  and  follow  it,  whatever  sacrifices  it  may 
require  of  pride,  of  former  opinions,  of  friendship,  of  kin- 
dred, of  reputation,  of  life  itself.  Let  not  the  platform 
of  action  be  made  narrow  by  intolerance.  If  it  be  of 
one  plank,  and  that  not  an  inch  in  breadth,  leap  upon  it, 
labor  on  it,  seek  to  widen  it,  never  desert  it  until  all  the 
land  stands  erect  upon  its  broad  base.  Toil  until  the  mus- 


54  THE   DEATH   OF   FREEDOM. 

tard  seed  becomes  a  mighty  tree,  the  stone  by  rolling  en- 
larges and  fills  the  whole  earth.  The  stone  which  the 
builders  so  disdainfully  reject  shall  yet  become  the  head  of 
the  corner,  the  capstone  of  universal  liberty  and  joy.  Fear 
not  the  names  that  are  flung  at  you,  as  if  of  themselves 
abominable.  They  are  good  words,  and  will  yet  be  the 
most  choice  and  honored  titles  of  this  hour.  The  brave 
Senator  Wade,  of  Ohio,  said,  in  that  fight  in  the  night  and 
with  the  night,  that  until  this  warfare  was  ended  by  the 
triumph  of  the  right,  "  I  am  an  Abolitionist*  at  heart  while 
in  the  slave-cursed  atmosphere  of  this  capital,  whatever  I 
may  be  at  home.  But  here  pride  and  self-respect  compel  a 
man  either  to  be  a  doughface,  flunky,  or  an  abolitionist, 
and  I  choose  the  latter.  I  feel  that  my  hatred  to  slavery 
justly  entitles  me  to  wear  it  —  a  name  which  I  never  "yet 
denied,  and  which  present,  passing  events  are  fast  rendering 
glorious."  Be  an  abolitionist  at  Washington,  at  home, 
everywhere.  It  is  the  highest  title  to-day  of  honor  from 
God,  and  will  be  to-morrow  of  like  honor  from  men. 

Finally,  forget  not  prayer.  This  kind  cometh  not  forth  but 
by  prayer  and  fasting. f  If  it  has  fascinated  the  nation  by  its 
wealth,  its  strength,  its  culture,  and  its  statesmanship,  if  it 
has  gained  possession  of  our  greatest  men,  it  can  be  expelled. 
They  can  again  become  clothed  and  in  their  right  mind — the 
mind  which  onej  had  at  Chicago,  when  he  declared  himself 
"opposed  to  the  extension  of  slavery;"  of  another  §  at  New 
Boston,  when  he  said,  "The  Fugitive  Slave  Law  is  a  great 
evil ;  "  of  another  ||  at  Newburyport,  when  he  wrote  letters 

*  This  word  was  afterward  printed  in  the  Congressional  Globe  in 
Italics,  as  if  it  was,  as  it  was,  an  extraordinary  expression  of  boldness. 
It  is  possible  that  this  was  the  first  adoption  of  this  title  by  a  member 
of  Congress  in  his  seat. 

t  Frequent  national  proclamations  of  prayer  and  fasting  were  made 
during  the  war,  beginning  with  that  of  President  Buchanan,  in  the  win- 
ter before  his  administration  terminated. 

J  Stephen  A.  Douglas.         §  Edward  Everett.         ||  Caleb  Cushing. 


THE   NEBRASKA   BILL.  55 

full  of  the  warmest,  noblest  sentiments  of  freedom.  Who 
knows  but  that  this  mind  may  return  ? 

Perhaps  the  final  act  by  which  this  iniquity  is  consum- 
mated may  yet  be  stayed.  Perhaps  compunction  may  par- 
alyze the  hand  that  would  subscribe  the  death-warrant  of 
the  nation.  Pilate's  wife  may  perhaps  successfully  warn 
her  husband  to  have  nothing  to  do  against  this  most  just 
cause  —  to  sign  no  decree  which  shall  consign  millions  of 
sons  and  daughters  of  the  Lord  Almighty,  whom  Christ  has 
declared  to  be  his  brothers,  and  sisters,  and  mothers,  to 
shames,  and  agonies,  and  welcome  deaths. 

If  the  national  governor's  wife  should  fail  in  duty,  or  in 
success  ;  if  Herod,  and  Caiaphas,  and  Pilate — the  Senate, 
the  House,  and  the  President — unite  in  this  crucifixion  of 
Freedom  ;  if  it  lies  in  its  sepulcher,  pierced  and  lifeless, 
before  a  mocking  South,  a  tearful,  timid  North,  an  amazed 
world,  still  let  •  us  pray.  Death  cannot  bind  it  forever. 
God  will  not  suffer  this  holy  one  to  see  corruption.  It  will 
rise  again.  It  will  come  forth  in  greater  glory  than  it  ever 
wore  before.  With  powers  then  vailed,  but  now  disclosed, 
it  shall  sit  in  the  seat  of  judgment.  It  shall  be  itself  Con- 
gress and  President.  It  shall  fill  its  votaries  with  praise 
and  might,  and  its  enemies  with  shame  and  everlasting  con- 
tempt. Its  foes  shall  be  its  footstool.  With  our  great 
Senator,  at  that  midnight  hour  of  its  passage,  may  we  say, 
"  Sorrowfully  I  bend  before  the  wrong  you  are  about  to 
perpetrate.  Joyfully  I  welcome  all  the  promises  of  the 
future."  * 

Roll  away  the  stone  from  the  door  of  the  sepulcher ! 
Be  vigilant.  Be  tearless.  Be  prayerful.  Be  believing. 
We  shall  triumph,  not  through  disunion,  not  with  perpetual 
feuds,  but  through  the  help  and  Spirit  of  God.  Some 
U  ashington  or  Jefferson  will  yet  arise,  who  will  lead  North 
and  South  to  the  battle  and  the  triumph  of  true  freedom  and 

*  Charles  Sumner. 


56  THE   DEATH   OF  FREEDOM. 

true  democracy.  The  South  will  not  forever  keep  back, 
and  our  Jerusalem,  the  seat  of  this  death,  shall  be  the  seat 
of  its  revival  in  perfect  power  and  glory. 

While,  therefore,  we  weep  over  this  death  and  burial  of 
national  righteousness,  as  David,  when  the  government  fell 
into  the  power  of  apostate  sons  and  priests,  went  weeping 
up  Olivet,  and  looked  back  on  the  sacred  city  left  desolate, 
let  us  also  weep  with  a  purpose  and  hope  of  regaining  the 
lost  sovereignty.  Labor  in  the  closet,  at  the  family  altar, 
in  the  community,  at  the  polls,  with  prayer,  and  speech, 
and  purse,  and  vote.  Labor  with  a  largeness  of  soul  that 
seeks  not  only  this  grand  and  spacious  land  for  freedom, 
but  freemen  everywhere  in  a  free  land.  Labor  till  every 
yoke  is  broken  and  every  family  unbroken,  until  the  feet 
of  tender  women  no  more  sow  blood  along  the  paths 
their  taskmasters  drive  them,  until  their  hearts  no  more 
sow  richer  drops  of  sacred  blood  over  sundered  families 
and  desolate  households,  —  soon  to  be  reaped  in  what  terri- 
ble judgments  upon  our  nation,  ourselves,  our  posterity, 
God  only  knows,  and  the  future  alone  can  tell. 

We  may  go  into  deeper  blackness,  but  we  shall  come 
forth  into  brighter  light..  May  every  soul  be  a  worker 
together  with  God  in  this  the  hour  and  power  of  darkness, 
that  he  may  rightfully  be  a  partaker  in  the  glory  that  shall 
follow. 


THE   STATE  STKUCK   DOWN.* 


"BUT     THOSE     HUSBANDMEN    SAID    AMONG    THEMSELVES,     THIS    IS    THE 

HEIR;    COME,  LET  us  KILL  HIM,  AND  THE  INHERITANCE    SHALL  BE 
OURS." — Mark  xii.  7. 


AST  Sabbath  many  of  us  —  would  it  had  been 
all  —  ate  the  body  and  drank  the  blood  of  the 
great  Martyr  of  Humanity,  of  Deity.  In  grateful, 
solemn,  humble  devotion,  we  commemorated  that 
event  which  at  the  time  seemed,  and  was,  the  victory  of 
hell.  A  band  of  men,  eminent  in  station,  armed  with 
swords  and  staves,  came  upon  that  Martyr,  in  the  dusk 
of  a  Thursday  evening,  in  the  retirement  of  a  garden. 
They  beat  Him  with  deadly  blows,  they  thrust  in  His  head 
the  cutting  thorns,  they  mock  Him,  spit  upon  Him,  murder 
Him  !  All  for  what  ?  Professedly  for  blasphemy.  False 
hypocrites  !  Great  zeal  theirs  for  their  National  Religion, 
for  the  Constitution  of  their  fathers,  for  the  quiet  and 
harmony  of  their  nation.  This  was  the  reason  :  "  Then 
gathered  the  chief  priests  and  the  Pharisees "  (President 
and  Senators),  "  a  council,  and  said,  What  do  we  ?  for  this 
man  docth  many  miracles.  If  we  let  Him  thus  alone,  all 

*  A    sermon   preached  at  Westfleld,  Mass.,  June  11,    1856,   on  the 
occasion  of  the  assault  on  Hon.  Charles  Sumner.     See  Note  II. 

(5-) 


58  THE    STATE    STRUCK   DOWN. 

men  will  believe  on  Him."  It  was  because  He  was  an 
eloquent  orator,  whom  the  common  people  heard  gladly  ; 
because  He  was  a  bold  and  sarcastic  denouncer  of  these 
same  official  criminals  ;  because  He  strove  to  restore  the 
principles  and  practices  of  the  fathers  to  their  true  seat 
of  authority  and  power  ;  because  He  pleaded  for  the  primi- 
tive Constitution  of  their  Washington  in  its  true  meaning  ; 
because  He  was  a  real  democrat,  who  loved  the  people 
and  sought  their  good,  who  was  not  ashamed  to  talk  and 
abide  familiarly  with  the  Samaritans,  whom  his  countrymen 
hated  and  despised,  as  we  do  the  black  race  among  us,  — 
it  was  for  these  reasons  that  they  hated,  beat,  and  mur- 
dered Him.  Not  on  account  of  His  blasphemy  or  uncon- 
stitutionality ;  not  because  He  surpassed  the  bounds  of 
propriety  in  His  speech,  though  no  sharper  nor  severer 
personalities  are  found  in  all  oratory  than  those  He  uttered. 
Far  deeper,  more  malignant,  more  powerful,  were  the  mo- 
tives which  impelled  them.  They  were  the  central  fears 
of  a  wicked  oligarchy,  who  saw  their  power  giving  way 
under  the  mighty  words  of  this  Master  of  the  Hearts,  soon 
to  have  been  Master  of  the  Acts  of  the  people.  They  were 
the  central  passions  of  their  viperous  souls,  which  felt  that 
if  He  was  stricken  down,  all  the  powers  of  virtue,  con- 
science, ancient  name,  divine  religion,  would  fall  into  the 
same  grave,  and  their  tyranny  be  perfect  and  perpetual. 
Therefore  "those  husbandmen  said  among  themselves,  This 
is  the  Heir  ;  come,  let  us  kill  Him,  and  the  inheritance 
shall  be  ours." 

Let  it  not  be  thought,  in  the  suggestions  of  this  analo- 
gy, that  we  would  limit  the  experience  of  our  adorable 
Savior,  in  that  hour  of  grief  and  pain  extreme,  to  that 
of  any  follower  of  His,  however  exalted.  It  was  not 
Christ  as  God,  but  as  man,  that  the  Jews  intended  to  slay. 
For  if  it  had  been  as  God,  then  they  must  have  been  fiends, 
not  men,  and  He  could  not  pray  for  them  as  we  must 


ASSAULT   ON   CHARLES    SUMNER.  59 

for  all  —  "Father,  forgive  them,  for  they  know  not  what 
they  do."  They  meant  to  kill  Him  as  a  man;  lie  laid  down 
His  life  as  our  divine  Redeemer. 

The  feelings  and  actions  of  His  persecutors  come  afresh 
before  us  in  the  tragedy  of  to-day  —  persecutors,  then, 
as  now,  blind  to  the  divinity  of  the  principles  and  pow- 
ers they  seek  in  the  person  of  their  advocates  to  utterly 
destroy. 

Every  sufferer  for  the  truth  is  an  associate  of  that  Infinite 
Sufferer  in  His  sorrows,  His  joys,  His  renown.  They  who 
fell  in  the  obscurity  of  ancient  martyrdoms,  of  Italian 
dungeons,  of  Hungarian  gallows,  of  Southern  swamps 
and  cells  ;  those  who  molder  or  are  hardly  yet  cold  under 
the  grassy  plains  of  Kansas  ;  and  he  whose  blood  stains, 
and  will  forever  stain,  the  floor  of  the  hall  of  our  highest 
legislation,  who  now  lies  pale  and  weak,  with  that  brain 
full  of  great  thought  and  high  resolve,  a  festering  pulp  of 
dead  matter  struggling  for  the  mastery,  and  almost  sure  of 
carrying  its  victory  to  a  fatal  perfection,  and  of  laying  the 
noble  temple  of  that  sovereign  soul  in  ruins ;  all  these, 
known  and  unknown  by  men,  are  in  the  eye  of  God,  and 
stand  at  the  right  hand  of  Christ,  in  the  work  and  reward 
of  human  redemption. 

Eminent  among  these,  when  we  consider  the  powers 
which  he  represents,  and  which  are  combined  against  him, 
is  he  who  closes  our  catalogue.  There  has  been  no  such 
martyr,  in  the  position  and  purposes  of  his  assailants,  in 
the  variety,  wealth,  and  importance  of  the  established  and 
prosperous  Ideas  thus  assailed.  It  is  not  because  of  per- 
sonal feeling  at  the  keenness  of  his  sarcasm,  nor  because 
he  broaches  unconstitutional  heresies,  or  disturbs  the  har- 
mony of  the  nation,  that  he  is  smitten  with  the  tongue  of 
Senatorial  vituperation,  and  the  bludgeon  of  Represen- 
tative bloodthirstiness.  It  is  because  he  is  the  plainest, 
strongest,  most  eloquent,  most  single-eyed,  most  unschem- 


60  THE   STATE    STRUCK   DOWN. 

ing,  ministerial,  and  prophetical  of  all  the  defenders  of 
Liberty  on  the  floor  of  Congress.  It  is  because  his  great 
powers  of  wisdom,  learning,  rhetoric,  and  oratory,  have 
been  sanctified  and  set  apart  for  the  Master's  use.  It  is 
because  his  appropriation  of  these  eminent  gifts  to  the 
before  degraded  cause  of  Abolition  has  raised  that  from 
the  dust,  and  made  the  hooted,  dreaded  name  of  Aboli- 
tionist like  the  very  glory  of  God,  in  the  light  which 
his  protecting  and  illuminating  genius  has  cast  upon  it. 
It  is  because  in  him  thus  dwelt  personally  and  officially 
the  desires  and  purposes  of  freedom,  that  these,  its  ene- 
mies, have  singled  him  out  for  years  as  the  central  mark 
of  their  venomous  hate.  "  It  is  tlie  cause,  it  is  tJie  cause," 
my  friends.  Therefore  it  was  that  in  that  hall  of  dignity 
and  authority,  on  that  Thursday  afternoon,  but  a  few  days 
after  the  anniversary,  and  a  few  hours  before  the  time 
that  the  Divine  Orator  and  Reformer  was  assailed,  a  band 
of  men,  eminent  in  station,  armed  with  swords  and  staves 
(how  significant  the  analogy!  —  bowie  knives  and  loaded 
canes,  the  modern  substitutes  and  striking  likenesses  of  the 
Roman  glaive  and  club),  instigated  and  supported  by  their 
still  more  eminent  leaders,  set  upon  this  unarmed  disciple 
of  the  mighty  and  hated  Nazarene,  and  left  him  senseless 
in  his  blood. 

Many  murders  of  the  advocates  of  the  truth  are  in  the 
pages  of  humanity.  Yet  no  one  embodies  so  many  per- 
fected fruits  of  evil  on  the  one  hand,  and  of  goodness  on 
the  other,  as  this. 

Others  were  smitten  down  while  bearing  and  sowing  the 
seed  of  life  yet  ungrown.  So  fell  the  first  martyr,  Abel. 
So  fell  all  the  forerunners  of  Christ.  So  fell  the  disciples 
in  those  early  persecutions.  So  Luther  freed  the  long- 
imprisoned  truths,  and  flashed  them  out  in  all  their  purity 
upon  the  conscience  of  the  world,  and  it  rushed  upon  him 
with  swords  and  bludgeons.  So  the  Puritans  suffered  as 


ASSAULT  ON  CHARLES  SUMNER.         61 

seed-bearers,  the  Wesleys  and  their  associates,  Kossuth 
and  his  people,  Mazzini  and  his,  Washington  and  his.  I 
know  not  an  instance  in  which  the  principles  of  Civil  and 
Religious  Freedom,  in  the  very  summit  of  their  lofty  power, 
have  been  so  murderously  assailed.  Roman  purity  and 
honor  had  already  fled  when  Caesar  clove  down  the  statue 
of  Liberty ;  when  the  Goths  replaced  her  effeminacy  with 
their  wild,  rude  vigor.  France  had  no  national  piety  nor 
morality  when  Napoleon  grasped  her  sceptre.  These  were 
Jehus,  appointed  to  smite  down  anarchy,  voluptuousness, 
and  intolerable  vice. 

But  here,  in  the  Senate  House  of  this  Christian  Republic, 
on  the  person  of  this  simple  man  of  God's  desires,  there 
fell  the  blows  of  Arch-Iniquity.  It  was  anarchy  assaulting 
order ;  the  deepest  ignorance,  the  highest  learning  ;  savage 
habits,  the  finest  culture.  It  was  idleness  murdering  in- 
dustry ;  piracy,  honorable  trade  ;  disunion,  the  federation 
of  Free  and  Equal  States  ;  barbarism,  civilization  ;  grossest 
impiety,  holiest  Christianity.  It  was  progressive  debase- 
ment in  every  wish  and  want  of  man,  cleaving  down  pro- 
gressive enlightenment  in  every  walk  of  the  soul.  It  was, 
in  fine,  every  vice  throttling  every  virtue  ;  Satan  attacking 
Christ. 

Sumner  is  not,  like  the  fathers  of  the  Revolution,  a 
rebel  without  any  authority  save  that  which  God  had  in- 
wardly given.  He  is  not  like  Clarkson,  and  Wilberforce, 
and  Garrison,  at  the  beginning  of  their  career,  eloquent 
rcvcalers  of  the  yet  generally  unseen.  He  embodies  the 
awful  sovereignty  of  a  Nation, — for  every  State  is  a  Nation 
in  its  rights  and  dignities.  He  embodies  the.  whole  civil, 
social,  and  personal  character  of  that  State.  He  represents 
its  wealth,  its  enterprise,  its  education,  its  philanthropy, 
its  religion,  its  perfect  life. 

As  it  was  not  a  mere  man,  but  the  liberties  and  human- 
ities of  a  great  State  and  Nation  that  were  thus  felled,  so 


62  THE   STATE   STRUCK  DOWN. 

the  aggressor  was  something  more  than  a  man.  Brooks, 
much  less  than  a  man  as  he  is,  would  not  have  dared  to 
strike  Massachusetts.  It  was  a  confederacy  of  the  aban- 
doned men  who  wield  the  sceptre  of  our  government,  whose 
strong  hand  hurled  Brooks  at  the  defenceless  head  of  this 
State.  It  was  a  systematic,  mighty,  ruling  Sin,  the  sum 
and  essence  of  all  villainies,  that  swayed  that  league,  as 
the  will  the  arm,  and  hurled  its  cowardly  implement  at 
the  sum  and  essence  of  all  virtues  in  the  person  of  your 
Representative.  Hence  the  inspiration  and  the  judgment 
which  made  them  say  among  themselves,  "  This  is  the  heir  ; 
come,  let  us  kill  him,  and  the  inheritance  shall  be  ours." 

Sympathy  with  the  sufferer  is,  therefore,  the  least  of  your 
duties  in  connection  with  this  crime  ;  would  be  the  least 
agreeable  to  him  in  his  perils  and  pains,  and  the  least  sat- 
isfactory to  Him  whose  he  is  and  whom  he  serves.  We 
bleed  in  him  ;  liberty,  humanity,  the  future  of  our  race  in 
time,  the  future  of  unnumbered  members  of  it  in  eternity, 
religion,  Christ,  —  all  are  faint,  and  bleeding,  and  ready 
to  die  in  the  feeble  body  and  suffering  soul  of  this  repre- 
sentative man. 

Standing    amid    the   smitten    and   shaking    pillars   of  all 
national,   of  all  human  perfection,   let  us  ask  ourselves  — 
First,  Are  we  guilty  in  this  matter  ?      Second,  If  so,  what 
works  meet  for  repentance  shall  we  bring  forth  ? 

I.  Are  we  partakers  of  the  sin  and  guilt  of  this  Cain  ? 
We  sharers  of  his  sin  ?  you  will  say ;  we,  so  vehement  in  our 
denunciations,  so  valiant  in  our  boasting,  so  bloody  in  our 
revenge  ?  we,  accessories  before  the  fact  to  the  murder  of 
the  whole  past  and  future  of  human  attainment  ?  It  cannot 
be.  "  Out  of  thine  own  mouth  will  I  judge  thee,  thou  slothful 
servant."  As  this  thing  was  not  done  in  a  corner,  so  it 
was  riot  done  in  a  moment.  A  long  series  of  assaults  and 
martyrdoms  of  principles  and  their  advocates,  patiently 
endured,  often  as  violently  applauded  by  us  as  this  deed 


ASSAULT   ON   CHARLES    SUMNER.  63 

by  the  South,  have1  been  the  necessary  preamble  to  the  civil 
war  in  Kansas  and  the  brutality  in  Washington.  Sumner's 
fall,  the  murder  of  Barbour,  the  butchery  of  John  Brown's 
son,  the  sack  of  Lawrence,  the  ravages  of  a  guerrilla  war, 
legislative  and  executive  falsehood  and  violence,  —  these  are 
but  the  central  scenes  in  the  national  tragedy,  whose  future 
acts  threaten  to  be  so  bloody,  but  whose  first  scenes  were 
performed  before  a  nation  of  spectators  wavering  between 
indifference  and  applause  of  the  wrong  doer  and  his  deeds. 
See  where  the  great  principles  of  the  Declaration  were 
stricken  down  and  slain  along  the  path  of  our  national 
legislation. 

In  the  Constitution,  framed  thirteen  years  after  that 
sublime  assertion  of  the  political  equality  of  all  men,  there 
creeps  in,  in  the  intention  of  its  framers,  though  in  such 
phrase  as  permits  us  otherwise  to  understand  it,  the  rec- 
ognition of  Slavery  as  a  power  in  the  land  —  a  coheir 
with  Liberty,  of  the  great  inheritance  just  won  from  Britain. 
Six  years  later,  that  Slavery  gets  embodied  in  a  statute,  the 
ancestor  of  our  present  accursed  Fugitive  Slave  Bill  —  a 
puny  father  of  a  monstrous  son,  yet  still  the  father. 
Twenty  years  later,  the  son  of  this  first  born  of  Slavery 
was  born  into  legislation,  and  we  still  submitted  our  necks 
to  the  yoke.  Then  ca-me  the  Missouri  Compromise,  by 
which  three  States  —  Louisiana,  Arkansas,  and  Missouri  — 
were  admitted  into  the  Union  under  its  baleful  protection, 
while  the  more  distant  lands,  being  without  inhabitants, 
were  graciously  surrendered  to  liberty.  And  instead  of 
demanding  its  instant  repeal,  and  keeping  up  that  cry  till 
it  drowned  all  contending  voices,  we  said,  "It  is  done  ; 
it  can't  be  helped  ;  it  is  well  to  make  the  best  of  a  bad 
bargain.  So,  'Hurrah  for  the  Compromise,  healing,  uniting, 
enduring  !  '  Then  came  the  gagging  of  the  free  speech 
of  the  people  in  the  refusal  to  receive  petitions  for  free- 
dom—  a  gag  formally  revoked,  yet  as  really  the  law  of 


64  THE   STATE    STRUCK   DOWN. 

the  Senate  to-day,  and  of  the  House  till  this  session,  as 
when  its  author  won  for  himself  a  hapless  immortality  in 
securing  its  pssage.  Then  came  the  orders  to  open  the 
mail,  and  rifle  it  of  all  free  words,  where  free  speech  was 
incendiary  —  and  it  was  done.  Then  comes  the  Texas  an- 
nexation ;  then  the  Mexican  War ;  then  the  refusal  to  pro- 
tect the  new  territories  from  the  invasion  of  this  evil ;  then 
the  new  atrocity  of  a  Fugitive  Slave  Bill ,  by  far  the  most 
wicked  thing  ever  done  by  our  nation  ;  then  the  repeal  of 
that  protection  which  had  been  so  laboriously  constructed; 
then  and  now  the  full  power  of  the  government  to  deprive 
these  unprotected  lands  of  any  of  the  rights  of  freedom, 
and  to  compel  their  submission  to  the  foul  embrace  of  sla- 
very ;  then  and  now  the  gagging  of  free  speech  and  act  in 
Congress  and  Kansas,  not  by  vote,  as  the  people  suffered 
themselves  to  be,  but  by  the  red  hand  of  war. 

We  are  indignant  to-day,  and  indignant,  I  hope,  not  too 
late  :  but  our  cowardice  and  lack  of  moral  principle  have 
brought  all  this  upon  us.  Think  you,  if  the  South  had  lost 
the  Missouri  Compromise,  they  would  have  been  so  ready  to 
declare  the  thing  settled,  and  in  conventions  and  resolutions 
heartily,  and  with  hurrahs,  shouted  over  their  defeat  ?  AVe 
did,  and  do.  Think  you  the  slave  power  would  have  let 
their  numerous  petitions  on  their  favorite  subject  be  treated 
with  the  contempt  which  petitions  for  freedom  receive  ? 
Would  they  be  content  with  the  barren  form  of  a  speechless 
reception  ?  Would  they  not  storm  Congress  and  the  coun- 
try till  their  demands  triumphed,  if  triumph  were  possible  ? 
Would  we  have  allowed  requests  for  legislation  on  far 
inferior  subjects  to  suffer  such  sovereign  disdain  ?  Yet  this 
all-involving  interest  has  been  spurned  from  their  doors,  and 
we  have  been  quiet.  We  have  gone  into  active  political 
association  with  those  who  thus  choked  both  our  liberties, 
and  those  of  our  enslaved  brethren  in  the  South,  in  one 
effectual  clutch  of  death. 


ASSAULT   OX   CHARLES   SUMNER.  65 

Thus  has  "  that  great  serpent,  which  is  the  Devil  and 
Satan,"  in  the  guise  of  slavery,  swallowed  our  territories, 
our  constitutional  principles,  our  judicial  decisions,  our 
national  legislation,  our  religious  organizations,  our  whole 
peculiar  and  honorable  character.  "The  beauty  of  Israel 
has  been  slain  on  her  high  places,"  and  we  have  not  even 
kept  silence.  We  hastened  after  the  godless  conqueror. 
We  applauded  his  victories.  We  carried  the  feeble  repre- 
sentative and  tool  of  this  power  by  an  almost  unanimous 
vote  into  the  office  he  now  desecrates.*  We  cast  the 
words  of  righteousness  so  far  behind  us  that  for  half  a  gen- 
eration Freedom  lay  a  breathless  corpse  in  the  midst  of  our 
land.  Thus  fell  the  great  moral  and  legal  principles  of  true 
government  along  the  path  of  our  baleful  progress. 

But  these  lie  not  alone.  As,  upon  some  field  where  Right 
fell  under  the  death-strokes  of  Might,  the  faithful  standard- 
bearer  lies  dead  beside  his  torn  and  trampled  flag,  so  these 
principles  have  not  been  without  those  human  souls  who 
lifted  them  up  before  the  people,  and  who  fell  with  them 
into  the  grave  of  the  martyr ;  ascended  the  rather  with 
them,  like  Astrea,  into  the  glory  which  is  with  the  God  and 
Father  of  all  truth  and  its  worshipers. 

A  little  more  than  twenty  years  ago  the  spirit  of  God 
breathed  the  breath  of  life  into  a  few  men  and  women,  and 
sent  them  out  into  this  great  wilderness,  crying,  "Repent 
ye."  But  so  far  from  acknowledging  them  as  anointed  of 
God  for  this  work,  and  obeying  their  commands,  we  cried, 
"  Away  with  them  !  Away  with  them  !  Crucify  them  ! 
Crucify  them  !  "  The  whole  North  is  blazing  with  rage  to- 
day on  account  of  the  murders  in  Kansas,  and  the  assaults 
and  threats  in  Washington.  But  there  have  been  other 
attacks  upon  other  abolitionists  which  we  have  openly 
approved,  or  easily  and  silently  allowed. 

*  There  were  only  four  States  that  did  not  cast  their  votes  for  Frank- 
lin Pierce,  of  New  Hampshire. 
5 


66  THE    STATE   STRUCK  DOWN. 

A  few  Christian  women  and  an  earnest  exhorter  for  the 
slave  were  mobbed  by  a  crowd  of  gentlemen  of  property 
and  standing  in  the  streets  of  Boston,  within  sight  of  Fan- 
euil  Hall,  but  a  score  of  years  ago.  How  many  Northern 
villages  and  cities,  how  many  persons,  rebuked  the  deed  ? 
Their  number  could  be  easily  counted.  Lovejoy  fell  a  mar- 
tyr to  free  speech  on  the  shores  of  the  Mississippi.  Did 
indignation  meetings  take  place  in  all  hearts  and  homes  ? 
Alas !  he  entered  an  unhonored  grave.  Torrey  sickened 
and  died  in  a  Baltimore  prison  for  the  noblest  philanthropy 
which  the  present  age  has  witnessed.*  Did  you  weep  over 
his  death  ?  Did  pulpits  and  presses  everywhere  lift  up  one 
cry  of  horror  to  Heaven  at  the  deed  ?  Dray  ton  and  Searle 
languished  in  the  National  Jail  at  Washington  for  offering 
their  vessel  to  a  band  of  oppressed  Christians  who  had  heard 
and  believed  in  the  Declaration  of  Independence.  Dr.  Bai- 
ley's press  was  thrown  into  the  Ohio  ;  Dr.  Cox's  church 
sacked  in  New  York  ;  Pennsylvania  Hall  burned  in  Phila- 
delphia ;  Prudence  Crandall  mobbed  in  Connecticut  for  teach- 
ing little  children  to  read  and  write.  Almost  every  State 
has  its  stool  of  infamy  on  which  it  has  placed  itself,  not 
with  shame  and  sorrow  of  heart,  but  with  boastful  pride. 
Gallio-like,  we  cared  for  none  of  these  things,  and  drove  the 
new  apostles  of  Jesus  Christ  everywhere  from  our  judgment- 
seats. 

Ay,  more  than  this.  As  a  people  we  have  upheld  and 
executed  the  enormity  of  the  Fugitive  Slave  Bill.  The 
orders  of  our  taskmasters  have  been  faithfully  obeyed. 
We  have  cast  the  poor  slave  to  Moloch.  We  have  cried 
to  all  the  beasts  of  the  South,  "  Come  and  devour."  Like 
Athens  of  old,  we  sent  our  sons  and  daughters  to  this  man- 
'  eating  Minotaur  of  the  South  ;  but  no  Theseus  went  with 
them  to  slay  the  monster,  and  lead  them  back  to  freedom. 

*  The  same  in  which  Mr.  Garrison  had  heen  previously  confined  for 
publishing  an  anti-slavery  newspaper. 


ASSAULT   OX  CHARLES   SUMNER.  67 

No  black  sails  and  funeral  dirges  are  on  our  Acorns  and 
Revenue  Cutters, 

"  Built  in  the  eclipse,  and  rigged  with  curses  dark," 

but  with  extraordinary  governmental  promptness  and  pleas- 
ure, with  military  pornp,  "  following  the  flag,  and  keeping  step 
to  the  music  of  the  Union,"  they  marched  into  the  crushing 
teeth  of  the  dreadful  ^monster.  Did  your  arm  rise  for  their 
rescue  ?  Did  your  hearts  bleed  for  their  agony  ?  Alas  ! 
no  tear  enriched  our  eyes.  But  a  momentary  sigh  responded 
in  our  hearts  to  their  faintings  even  unto  death.  "  They  are 
only  black  folks,"  we  cried,  as  we  recovered  our  breath  after 
the  short  spasm  of  conscience.  "  '  What  do  they  know  about 
feelings  ?  '  '  Is  it  not  so  nominated  in  the  bond  ? '  '  The  Con- 
stitution, it  must  be  preserved.'  '  Our  dear  white  brethren 
shall  have  their  rights.'  '  So  back  to  your  rice  swamps,  your 
mud  huts,  your  coffles,  your  bloodhounds,  your  unwilling 
pollution,  your  torn  hearts,  your  slaves'  graves.'  '  Great 
statesmen  said,  "  Conquer  your  prejudices."  Great  minis- 
ters preached,  "  The  powers  that  be  are  ordained  of  God, 
and  therefore,  whatever  they  ordain  (though  they  frame 
iniquity  by  a  law)  is  God's  decree."  Great  merchants  and 
manufacturers  cried,  "  Our  craft  is  in  danger.  So, 

'  Hence,  home  !  you  slavish  creatures,  get  you  home  ! 
Ye  blocks,  ye  stones,  ye  worse  than  senseless  things !  ' ' 

and  all  the  people,  through  the  ballot-box,  with  a  cruel  una- 
nimity, said,  "  Amen." 

Beneath  this  lowest  deep  there  is  a  lower  deep,  out  of 
which  this  prince  of  darkness  has  arisen  to  sit  in  power  and 
great  glory  in  the  midst  of  our  land. 

The  fearful  consummations  of  this  hour  have  their  primal 
root  in  our  infixed  repugnance  to  those  who  suffer  this 
wrong.  The  least  touch  of  their  blood  is  as  leprosy  to 
our  self-important  Caucasianism.  Have  you  not,  do  you 


68  THE    STATE    STRUCK   DOWN. 

cherish  not,  this  pride  of  caste  ?  Do  you  not  declare  com- 
plexion a  Heaven-appointed  barrier  between  the  children  of 
Adam  ?  Is  there  not  in  your  feelings  (I  will  not  say  judg- 
ment, for  the  reason  has  nothing  to  do  originally  or  secon- 
darily in  this  matter)  a  loathing  of  your  brethren  ?  Have  you 
not  proclaimed  the  disunity  of  the  race,  and  given  to  your 
unnatural  prejudices  the  authority  of  the  divine  will  ?  Let 
him  that  is  without  sin  cast  the  first  stone  at  those  who, 
standing  on  the  godless  sentiment,  have  laid  the  yoke  of 
bodily  chattelism,  with  all  its  horrible  consequences,  on 
these  our  brethren,  and  the  yoke  of  political  chattelism, 
with  its  past  and  present  shames  and  sorrows,  upon  us  who 
sympathize,  but  will  not  fraternize  with  these  sufferers. 

Hence  come  the  present  motions  of  the  nation.  Up 
from  this  deep  and  long  enslavement  of  our  judgment,  our 
sympathies,  our  conscience,  attended  by  the  obedient  and 
conspiring  forms  of  the  National  Legislation,  Judiciary,  Ex- 
ecutive, and  Religion,  like  "archangels  ruined,"  this  evil 
Power  rises  to  its  present  infamous  bight  of  oath  and 
covenant  breaking ;  the  invasion  of  sovereignties  ;  the  rob- 
bery of  our  dearest  rights,  and  the  murder  of  our  national 
life.  Judges  like  Loring,  Kane,  and  Lecompte  utter  their 
execrable  decisions  as  the  solemn  declaration  of  supreme 
law.  The  president  uses  the  cunning  of  his  brain,  the 
strength  of  his  mailed  hand,  to  carry  into  execution  these 
judicial  lies,  and  to  destroy  the  beautiful  house  which  our 
fathers  builded  of  truth,  freedom,  and  happiness. 

Up  along  the  bloody  path  of  the  cruelties  of  our  enslaved 
brethren,  of  the  cruelties  and  murders  of  Northern  freemen, 
it  has  marched  to  the  fatal  victories  of  this  hour.  How 
vividly  the  parable  which  climaxes  in  our  text  portrays  our 
national  history  !  .When  God  planted  this  vineyard  with 
the  seeds  of  a  holy  religion  and  civil  liberty,  and  left  it  to 
our  fathers  to  keep  and  dress  it,  they,  with  great  grief  of 
heart,  and,  alas,  with  as  great  feebleness  of  will,  let  the 


ASSAULT   ON   CHARLES    SUMNER.  69 

enemy  sow  his  seed  of  sin,  so  that  when  His  earliest  ser- 
vants came  seeking  the  fruit  of  a  perfect  freedom,  they 
were  beaten  and  sent  away  empty.  And  again  lie  sent 
other  servants,  commanding  in  yet  louder  tones  to  let  the 
oppressed  go  free,  and  to  break  every  yoke  ;  and  at  them  we 
"  cast  stones,  and  wounded  them  in  the  head,  and  sent  them 
away  shamefully  handled."  Remember  you  how  that  aged 
and  eminent  representative  of  the  majesty  of  this  State  was 
driven  from  the  chief  city  of  a  sister  State,  whither  he  went 
to  ask  the  fruit  of  righteousness  for  the  Master  of  us  all  ? 
and  did  we  make  that  a  ceaseless  issue  with  our  govern- 
ment till  we  righted  that  wrong,  and  those  which  he  went 
to  remove  ?  If  we  had  but  put  our  heel  on  that  serpent  then, 
it  would  not  a  second  time  have  thrust  its  venomous  fangs 
into  the  sacred  head  of  Massachusetts,  and  hissed  in  tri- 
umph over  our  servility.  "  And  again  He  sent  another, 
and  him  they  killed  ;  and  many  others,  beating  some  and 
killing  some."  Growing  bold  by  victories  tamely  endured, 
or  only  vociferously  and  spasmodically  resisted,  when  the 
Compromise  appears,  converted  from  its  original  blackness 
into  an  angel  of  light,  and  asks  the  erection  of  its  lands 
into  free  territories  and  free  states,  —  when  the  free  speech  of 
an  awakening  North  rings  through  the  halls  of  legislation 
in  weighty  argument,  cutting  sarcasm,  pathetic  entreaties, 
bleeding  at  every  vein  in  agony  for  the  enslaved,  — these  rob- 
bers of  God,  and  murderers  of  His  children  and  His  princi- 
ples, "said  among  themselves,  This  is  the  heir;  come,  let 
us  kill  him,  and  the  inheritance  shall  be  ours." 

"  Strike  down  the  Compromise,"  they  say,  "  and  these 
consecrated  lands  are  open  to  our  defiling  foot.  All  lands, 
organized  though  they  be  into  States,  will  yield  to  the  same 
assault !  Freedom  flees  the  heritage,  and  all  the  grapes  of 
God  are  ours.  Strike  down  Sumner,  chief  among  his  peers, 
who,  robed  in  the  majestic  sovereignty  of  their  several  States, 
wield  their  delegated  power  with  the  might  of  Samson,  the 


70  THE    STATE    STRUCK   DOWN. 

wisdom  of  Solomon,  the  eloquence  of  Isaiah,  smite  to  the 
earth  this  beloved  son  of  liberty,  and  all  mouths  are  dumb. 
Quiet  reigns  in  Warsaw.  We  will  call  the  roll  of  our  slaves 
on  Bunker  Hill  with  no  opposing  voices.  We  will  give 
slavery  the  right  of  passage  through  the  Free  States,  the 
right  of  abode  there,  the  right  of  way  across  the  ocean, 
the  right  of  traffic  through  all  the  land  ;  and  you  ranting 
abolitionists  shall  '  roar  as  gently  as  a  sucking  dove/  if  your 
most  sweet  voices  do  not  chime  with  ours." 

As  one  of  the  most  eminent  and  conservative  of  the 
lawyers  of  New  York  city,  speaking  of  the  Sumner  outrage, 
says,  "  If  the  Senate  be  destroyed,  the  Union  is  destroyed, 
because  the  union  of  the  States  exists  in  the  Senate.  There 
the  States  are  equal.  There  Rhode  Island  measures  Ohio, 
Texas  and  Florida  out-double  New  York.  A  blow,  therefore, 
aimed  at  the  Senate  is  aimed  most  effectually  at  the  very 
heart  of  the  Union.  The  refusal  of  this  body  to  defend 
itself  against  such  aggressions  of  its  rights  has  pulled 
down  to  its  foundations  the  only  model  ever  existing  of  a 
free  government.  It  has  struck  a  blow  not  only  at  our  own 
country,  but  at  the  existence  of  all  government  among  men." 

Our  masters  reason  rightly.  There  is  no  more  that  they  can 
do  to  conquer  the  Constitution  and  the  Declaration.  Every 
vine  of  this  vineyard  of  God,  every  grape  of  every  vine  in 
which  was  His  blessing,  is  trodden  down  by  this  wild  boar 
of  slavery.  The  Border  Ruffian  policy  triumphs  to-day  as 
completely  in  AVashirigton  as  in  Kansas.  Calhoun's  official 
proclamation,  as  the  first  minister  of  state,  to  all  foreign 
powers,  that  slavery  is  the  corner-stone  of  this  Republic,  is 
unquestioned  law  in  two  of  the  great  branches  of  govern- 
ment, —  the  Judicial  and  Executive,  —  and  triumphant  in  the 
third.  If  these  things  are  borne,  if  they  are  not  speedily 
and  effectually  resisted,  farewell,  a  long  farewell,  to  all  our 
greatness  !  The  land  must  be  given  over  to  the  Sodomites 
who  now  possess  it,  and  its  iniquity  will  be  speedily  full. 


ASSAULT   ON   CHARLES    SUMNER.  71 

"  "\Vhat  will  the  Lord  of  the  vineyard  do  ?  He  will  misera- 
bly destroy  those  wicked  husbandmen,  and  let  out  his  vine- 
yard unto  other  husbandmen,  which  shall  render  him  the 
fruits  in  their  season."  Do  we  say,  as  did  those  affrighted 
hearers,  seeing  themselves  included  in  the  vengeance  com- 
ing on  their  land  and  nation,  "  God  forbid  "  ?  Then  may  we 
rightly  consider  the  second  part  of  our  duty. 

II.    What  works  meet  for  repentance  shall  we  bring  forth  ? 

We  have  been  consenting  to  this  death.  Perhaps,  like 
Pilate,  we  have  washed  our  hands  in  the  presence  of  those 
whose  arm  and  vote  struck  the  blow.  Perhaps,  like  Paul,  we 
now  preach  the  faith  we  once  destroyed.  Yet,  as  a  people, 
as  a  State,  I  hope  not ;  but  I  fear  too  many  of  us,  as  indi- 
viduals, have  washed  our  hands  in  vain.  We  were  indiffer- 
ent to  the  perils  and  defeats  of  freedom.  We  eagerly 
snatched  and  swallowed  the  few  beggarly  slops  of  office 
and  enactments  which  our  shrewd  Southern  masters  tossed 
us.  We  selfishly  let  Christ  be  scourged  and  crucified  in 
many  of  these  His  dear  children  in  chains  ;  in  %  many  price- 
less principles,  the  equally  dear  and  vital  offspring  of  His. 
We  may  cry,  "  Thou  canst  not  say  I  did  it."  But  God 
says,  "  Inasmuch  as  ye  did  it  not  unto  one  of  the  least  of 
these  my  "  children,  "  ye  did  it  not  to  Me."  Look  on  your 
hands.  Blood  !  Cry,  "  Out,  damned  spot !  out,  I  say  !  " 
It  flees  not ;  it  blears  our  eyes ;  it  stains  our  souls ;  it 
smells  to  heaven.  Not  all  the  perfumes  of  Arabia  can 
sweeten  this  Northern  hand. 

"  Nor  bleeding  bird,  nor  bleeding  beast, 
Nor  hyssop  branch,  nor  sprinkling  priest, 
Nor  running  brook,  nor  flood,  nor  sea, 
Can  wash  the  dismal  stain  away." 

What  can  ? 

1st.  Penitential  abasement  before  a  just  and  holy  and 
good  God,  whose  justice,  goodness,  and  holiness  we  have 
nationally  rejected.  The  North  must  bend  the  knee  in 


72  THE   STATE   STRUCK  DOWN. 

godly  sorrow  before  His  arm  brings  salvation.  We  must 
bewail  our  manifest  sins  toward  our  oppressed  brethren, 
toward  an  oppressed  Gospel,  oppressed  in  its  preaching,  in 
its  discipline,  in  its  literature,  in  its  whole  character  and 
claim.  We  must  have  God  on  our  side  if  we  would  dis- 
possess the  giants  that'  are  in  the  land  of  their  baleful 
power.  And  He  will  not  be  with  us  heartily,  unless,  like 
that  other  defender  of  truth  who  was  once  a  persecutor  and 
injurious,  we  beg  forgiveness  for  the  past  and  strength  for 
the  future. 

2d.   We  must  entertain  brotherly  feelings  toward  the  slave. 

You  are  not  going  to  deliver  yourself  without  delivering 
him.  This  revolution  has  far  greater  objects,  and  will  have, 
if  successful,  results  far  greater  than  that  of  1776.  That 
was  chiefly  for  the  political  salvation  of  the  European  race. 
It  answered  the  question,  "Is  the  highest  of  the  families 
of  men  capable  of  self-government  ?  "  This  is  for  the  po- 
litical and  social  salvation  of  all  men.  Extremes  here  provi- 
dentially meet.  The  lowliest  of  your  kindred  has  hold  of 
your  hearts.  Their  welfare  is  inextricably  inwrought  in 
your  own.  They  are  around  your  necks.  You  cannot 
shake  them  off.  You  are,  you  must  be,  if  a  defender  of 
your  own  rights,  a  defender  of  theirs.  "  Abolitionist," 
"  Negro-worshiper,"  "  Black  Republican,"  whatever  name 
is  attached,  honorably  or  contemptuously,  to  the  upholders 
of  the  great  sentiment  of  perfect  human  equality  and 
brotherhood,  must  be  your  title. 

If  this  be  not  the  basis  of  our  present  indignation,  what 
is  ?  Why  this  furor  against  the  slaveholder,  if  the  colored 
race  is  not  one  with  our  own  ?  He  has  no  objection  to  our 
holding  slaves  and  carrying  them  to  Kansas  or  elsewhere. 
"  Because  free  labor  dies  beside  slave  labor  "  ?  Wherefore  ? 
It  does  not  die  where  horses  and  oxen  abound  ;  it  does  not 
where  the  dark  free  man  works.  Why  should  it  where  his 
slave  brother  toils  ?  Simply  because  in  our  heart  of  hearts 


ASSAULT   ON   CHARLES    SUMNEE.  73 

we  see  our  oneness.  Take  -away  this  conviction,  and  we 
can  trade  in  them  as  easily  as  in  cattle  or  grain.  The  argu- 
ment is  simple  and  unanswerable.  If  essentially  different 
and  inferior,  then  they  are,  and  of  right  ought  to  be,  ser- 
vants, slaves,  merchandise.  There  is  but  ONE  race  of  men, 
and  God  has  put  all  things  under  its  feet.  If  the  negro  is 
a  man,  then  he  is  the  unquestioned  equal  in  every  right  of 
every  other  man.  If  not  an  equal,  not  a  man.  If  not  a 
man,  a  merchantable  thing. 

All  this  prejudice  of  ours  is  peculiarly  superficial.  The 
seat  of  the  disease  is  in  the  skin,  not  in  the  vitals,  much  less 
in  the  spirit  within.  Social  and  civil  rights  hang  on  the 
fibers  of  the  flesh,  dwell  in  cellular  tissues  and  animal  pig- 
ments. Driven  from  one  fortress  after  another  by  the  spirit 
of  human  equality,  caste  has  made  its  last  refuge  in  the 
surface  of  the  body. 

Divine  right  of  Kings  has  become  a  mockery.  Blood  no 
.longer  flows  an  impassable  gulf  between  men.  Wealth 
lords  it  not  over  worth  with  universal  consent.  Might  is 
not  Right.  The  theories,  if  not  the  practices,  of  men  recog- 
nize the  equality  and  fraternity  of  all  men,  save  the  col- 
ored. They  are  outcasts.  Chisel  a  man's  features  a  little 
apart  from  the  European  standard ;  shade  his  skin  a  trifle 
darker  than  our  hue  ;  ay,  let  his  features  and  his  complexion 
be  after  our  most  perfect  models  ;  yet  let  the  fact  be  known, 
that  in  his  veins  flows  one  drop  of  Afric's  blood,  and  he 
dwells  not  as  an  equal  in  the  presence  of  his  brethren.  No 
church  opens  her  pulpit  to  receive  his  regular  ministrations. 
No  school  employs  his  talents  and  education  as  its  teacher. 
No  store  gives  him  the  knowledge  of  business  life.  No 
workshop  allows  him  to  handle  its  tools  and  acquire  its 
knowledge.  Exceptions  may  be  found  to  the  rule,  but  they 
are  most  rare  and  startling.  All  this  must  be  changed. 

We  must  recognize  our  kindred.  We  must  acknowledge 
that  every  man,  of  every  complexion,  has  in  his  genealogical 


74  THE    STATE    STRUCK   DOWN. 

chart,  as  Christ  had  in  His,  "'which  was  the  son  of  Adam, 
which  was  the  son  of  God."  It  is  their  wrongs,  and  not 
ours,  that  are  shaking  this  land.  The  prostrate  orator 
closed  his  first  great  speech  for  Freedom  with  a  quotation 
that  has  since  been  more  fearfully  verified,  and  unless 
heeded  will  yet  rive  our  souls  with  untold  agonies.  "  Be- 
ware," said  he,  "  beware  of  the  groans  of  wounded  souls. 
Oppress  not  to  the  utmost  a  single  heart ;  for  a  solitary 
sigh  has  power  to  overset  a  whole  world."  We  shall  be 
distracted  by  a  thousand  side  issues,  betrayed  by  a  thou- 
sand false  lights,  unless  this  great  truth  is  our  inspiration 
and  our  aim. 

"While  the  truckling  jurist  sitting,  as  the  slave-whip  o'er  him  swings, 
From  the  tortured  truths  of  Freedom  the  lie  of  Slavery  wrings, 
And  the  solemn  priest  to  Moloch  on  each  God-deserted  shrine 
Breaks  his  bondmen's  heart  for  hread,  pours  his  bondmen's  blood  for 
wine,  — 

"  While  the  multitude  in  blindness  to  a  far-off  Savior  kneels, 
And  spurns,  the  while,  the  temple  where  the  living  Savior  dwells,  — 
Thou  must  see  HIM  in  the  task-field,  in  the  prison  shadows  dim, 
And  thy  mercy  to  the  bondman,  it  is  mercy  unto  Him." 

3d.  If  we  thus  have  a  conscience  void  of  offense  in  the 
sight  of  God  and  man,  the  future  is  clear  before  us.  We 
know  not  the  exact  course  wisdom  may  dictate  in  every 
exigency,  but  we  know  its  general  bearings  and  its  inevita- 
ble goal.  As  the  traveler  sees  the  desired  summit  in  the 
light  that  overflows  both  it  and  the  interjacent  vales, 
though  he  knows -not  what  forests,  gorges,  and  ravenous 
beasts  are  between  him  and  it,  so  the  glorious  hight  of  a 
Universal  Freedom  rises  before  the  eye  thus  divinely  illu- 
mined, and  the  path  built  by  Divine  Providence  for  our  ad- 
vancing steps,  however  perilous  and  bloody,  will  lead  there. 

Two  duties  are  laid  upon  the  Emancipationist  to-day  — 
duties  as  imperative  and  as  valuable  as  those  which  will  be 
given  to  those  who  shall  in  some  future,  I  hope  not  distant, 


ASSAULT   ON   CHARLES   SUMNER.  75 

day,  complete  the  long  and  painful  work,  and  break  the  last 
yoke  from  the  neck  of  the  last  slave. 

The  duties  of  the  lover  of  Liberty  now  are,  — 

1st.  Resumption,  if  necessary,  by  force,  of  the  millions 
of  acres  stolen  from  us  by  the  slave  power,  and  defense  of 
those  who,  as  the  agents  of  the  Free  States,  are  struggling 
to  retain  it  in  their  possession  against  legalized  thieves  and 
murderers. 

2d.  The  instantaneous  and  complete  conversion  of  the 
government  from  Slavery  to  Freedom  in  all  its  ideas  and 
acts,  in  every  branch  and  office  of  its  power. 

1 .  How  shall  these  be  done  ?  The  first  by  the  stout 
hearts  and  strong  arms  of  freemen,  equipped  as  our  fathers 
were  against  the  less  cowardly  and  less  brutal  assassin  of 
the  forest,  and  the  array  of  foreign  tyranny.  Do  you  cry, 
"  What !  a  servant  of  the  Prince  of  Peace,  in  His  house, 
on  His  day,  recommend  the  weapons  of  war!"  "By  what 
authority  do  you  these  things,  and  who  gave  you  this  au- 
thority ?"  "I  will  also  ask  you  one  question,  and  if  you 
will  answer  me,  I  will  tell  you  by  what  authority  I  do  these 
things." 

Suppose  the  city  of  Springfield  and  the  adjacent  towns 
on  the  other  side  of  the  river,  on  account  of  their  earnest 
advocacy  of  the  Maine  Law,  are  invaded  by  armed  bands 
of  rumsellcrs  from  Connecticut  and  remoter  States.  They 
sack  the  city,  burn  and  blow  up  its  chief  buildings,  im- 
prison its  mayor  in  the  center  of  their  bloody  camp,  mur- 
der some  of  its  unarmed  and  unoffending  citizens,  and 
overrun  the  neighboring  territory,  robbing  and  killing  at 
will.  They  strike  down  not  only  the  offending  law,  but  all 
protections  against  anarchy.  They  declare  the  soil  their 
own,  and  will,  if  unopposed,  inevitably  turn  their  pestilent 
march  upon  us,  who  are  associated  with  the  helpless  suffer- 
ers in  the  same  reform,  and  in  the  malice  of  its  enemies. 
What  would  you  do  about  it  ?  What  should  the  minister 


76  THE    STATE    STRUCK   DOWN. 

of  Jesus  Christ  do  about  it  ?  As  brethren,  as  men,  whither 
would  your  eyes,  your  feet,  turn  ?  "  And  this  know,  that 
if  the  good  man  of  the  house  had  known  what  hour  the 
thief  would  come,  he  would  have  watched,  and  not  have 
suffered  his  house  to  be  broken  up."  How  could  he  have 
prevented  it?  By  soft  speeches?  By  referring  it  to  the 
ballot-box  as  to  whether  it  belonged  to  the  thief  or  the 
owner,  knowing  that  the  bands  of  the  robber  would  outdo 
in  violence,  if  not  in  power,  his  own  allies  ?  And  if  Christ 
commands,  in  effect,  the  good  man  of  the  house  not  to 
suffer  its  invasion,  does  He  not  demand  him  to  expel  the 
invaders,  especially  if  that  house  has  in  it  all  the  treasures 
of  wisdom,  and  knowledge,  and  happiness  gathered  by  the 
Providence  of  God  for  the  sustenance  of  his  earthly  chil- 
dren ? 

The  shapes  hot  from  Tartarus,  that  ravage  those  plains, 
are  unfortunately  encased  in  bodies,  and  wield  weapons  of 
death,  and  are  able  and  willing  to  drive  every  free  soul 
from  its  body  unless  they  can  scare  them,  body  and  soul, 
from  their  inheritance.  Men,  and  women,  and  children  are 
now  suffering  in  Kansas  the  pains  and  evils  of  civil  war. 
Its  clouds  overhang  that  fair  land.  Satan  and  his  hosts 
have  entered  that  Eden,  and  finding  that  they  could  not 
seduce  the  new  Adam  and  Eve  that  God  had  placed  there, 
they  are  employing  all  their  forces  to  expel  them.  All  the 
officers  of  the  government  join  in  the  dreadful  work.  It 
must  be  resisted.  We  must  not  suffer  the  house  to  be  broken 
up.  Not  so  great  an  hour  passed  over  those  who  lived  in 
"75.  Not  so  great  a  work  was  committed  to  a  Tell,  a  Kos- 
suth,  a  Washington,  as  is  given  to  this  hour  and  people. 
"  To-day  is  a  king  in  disguise/'  says  one  of  our  finest  brains. 
To-day  will  be  the  emperor  of  the  past  and  future  days  of 
this  Republic.  Shall  it  be  the  Lucifer  leading  it  from  the 
heaven  to  which  God  has  exalted  it,  or  the  Messiah  raising 
it  to  a  yet  loftier  heaven  of  grace  and  glory  ? 


ASSAULT   ON   CHARLES    SUMNER.  77 

Kansas  is  the  theater  where  the  conflict  between  the  re- 
bellious and  the  faithful  angels  is  renewed.  "  Of  form  and 
gesture  proudly  eminent,"  he  stands  who  was  the  second 
officer  of  this  nation,  and  the  head  of  the  (officially)  most 
grave  and  reverend  council  in  the  globe.  Beside  him  are 
Governors,  Senators,  Representatives,  Judges,  Cabinet  offi- 
cers, and  he  who  is  the  head  of  this  Republic,  — 

"Thrones  and  imperial  powers,  offspring  of  Heaven, 
Ethereal  virtues ;  who,  these  titles  now 
Justly  removed,  are  called  Princes  of  Hell." 

Shall  they  triumph  ?  Shall  that  land  be  drenched  with 
the  blood  of  the  slave  ?  Shall  its  sweet  airs  reek  with  the 
foul  breathings  of  the  master's  lust,  echo  and  moan  with 
the  groans  of  the  poor  bondmen  under  the  tortures  of  their 
tyrants,  often  bone  of  their  bone  and  flesh  of  their  flesh, 
"always  of  Christ's  body,  of  his  flesh  and  of  his  bones." 
Shall  the  abomination  which  maketh  desolate  there  be  set 
up— the  abomination  which  includes,  as  its  lesser  evils,  idle- 
ness, beggary,  ignorance,  licentiousness,  murder,  every  form 
and  fruit  of  sin  ?  Or  shall  liberty,  righteousness,  temper- 
ance, education,  love,  peace,  holiness,  every  virtue,  honor, 
and  joy,  flourish  and  abound  there  ? 

If  the  latter,  those  who  are  seeking  their  establishment 
must  be  sustained;  ten  thousand  armed  settlers  ought  to 
march  there  before  these  summer  months  close.  Do  you 
say,  "  Let  them  hold  it  for  a  season,  till  we  play  with  them 
the  great  game  of  the  Presidency  ?  "  If  so,  what  will  you 
do  if  you  lose  ?  What  can  you  do  if  they  win  ?  Remem- 
ber that  possession  is  nine  points  in  law.  What  will  you 
do  with  those  who  defend  your  rights  in  the  presence  of 
these  marauders  ?  The  voice  of  our  brother's  blood  cries 
to  us  from  that  ground.  Has  he  not  been  hacked  to  death 
by  more  than  savage  mobs?  lias  he  not  been  shot,  "the 
only  son  of  his  mother,  and  she  a  widow,"  after  having 


78  THE    STATE    STRUCK  DOWN. 

given  up  his  weapons,  and  while  going  peaceably  to  his 
home  ?  Has  not  the  voice  of  Rachel  gone  up  to  the  ear  of 
the  All-pitying,  "weeping  for  her  children,  and  would  not 
be  comforted  because  they  were  not"?  Is  not  the  gray- 
haired  Jacob,  going  down  to  his  grave  in  sorrow  for  his  be- 
loved son,  torn  to  pieces  by  those  fierce  beasts  in  the  shape 
now,  as  then,  of  men  and  brethren? 

"  Alas  !  that  country  sinks  beneath  the  yoke; 
It  weeps,  it  bleeds,  and  each  new  day 
A  gash  is  added  to  its  wounds.     Each  morn 
New  widows  howl,  new  orphans  cry,  new  sorrows 
Strike  Heaven  on  the  face,  that  it  resounds 
As  if  it  felt  with  Kansas,  and  yelled  out 
Like  syllable  of  dolor." 

Shall  we  let  these  demons  rage  there,  while  we  merely 
get  up  processions  and  mass  meetings  to  carry  the  next 
•election  ?  "These  things  ought  ye  to  do,  and  not  leave  the 
other  undone."  The  land  is  ours  :  it  has  been  solemnly 
deeded  to  us  by  the  voice  of  the  country,  and  the  deed  is 
recorded  in  the  nation's  registry.  It  is  ours,  for  ourselves 
and  our  children,  for  God  and  His  Christ.  And  shall  we 
basely  abandon  it  ?  If  patriots,  fearless  and  firm,  will  but 
go  thither,  and  peaceably  assume  their  rights  under  the 
Compromise  and  the  Constitution,  the  murderous  villains 
will  flee  as  the  thief  at  the  approach  of  the  sheriff;  their 
duped  followers  will  become  our  ally,  and  peace  shall  be  in 
all  her  borders. 

If  this  is  not  done,  we  can  do  nothing  in  the  great  politi- 
cal contest  at  the  polls  and  at  Washington,  nothing  in  the 
great  moral  war  in  the  South  for  speedy,  peaceful  emanci- 
pation. 

2.  Doing  this  courageously,  and  in  the  fear  of  God,  we 
should,  secondly,  put  the  whole  force  of  the  government 
instantly  and  thoroughly  on  the  side  of  freedom. 

Let  not  party  names  or  men  becloud  your  judgment,  be- 


ASSAULT    OX   CHARLES    SUMNER.  79 

wray  your  steps.  There  are  but  two  parties  in  this  land,  the 
Slave  and  the  Free.  All  the  buffets  of  compromising  ma- 
chinery that  have  heretofore  prevented  these  from  coming 
face  to  face,  have  been  crushed  to  death  in  the  violence  of 
the  collision.  Other  names  may  float  on  other  banners  in 
the  field  :  only  two  combatants  are  there.  Every  issue  is 
set  aside,  must  be  set  aside,  but  this.  We  have  thrust  Lib- 
erty into  the  outer  darkness  as  long  as  we  can.  It  is  put 
directly  before  us  by  our  Creator,  the  Creator  of  all  prog- 
ress in  national  and  spiritual  life.  Will  we  again  spurn  it  ? 
Will  we  again  let  a  name  and  a  party  lead  us  astray  from 
the  truth  ?  If  the  present  power,  though  under  other  lead- 
ers, retains  its  dominion,  Sumner's  reeling  swoon,  specch- 
lessness,  and  possible  death,  are  the  type  and  forerunner  of 
the  dumbness  and  death  of  all  the  liberties  of  this  people. 
Free  speech  can  no  more  be  heard  in  Washington  than  in 
Charleston.  The  North,  with  its  wealth  of  noble  principles 
and  practices,  is  trodden  down  of  the  Gentiles.  The  last 
ounce  is  thrown  upon  the  back  of  Issachar.  The  lion  of  the 
tribe  of  Judah  bends  his  neck  to  the  yoke.  Lucifer,  the 
light-bearer  of  the  Nations,  falls  from  heaven. 

If  the  kidnapping  of  the  wandering  fugitive  from  under 
the  shadow  of  Faneuil  Hall  and  Bunker  Hill, — if  the  drag- 
ging back  to  death  and  despair  of  that  more  than  Virginius, 
who  with  her  motherly  arm  struck  the  life  out  of  her  own 
child  to  prevent  prospective,  not  impending  shames  and 
woes,  —  if  these,  repeated  again  and  again  in  increasingly 
aggravated  forms,  cannot  rouse  our  sympathies  sufficiently 
to  demand,  with  a  voice  as  the  roar  of  many  waters,  the  in- 
stant repeal  of  the  nefarious  statute,  what  can  bring  philan- 
thropy from  dream-land  into  actual  life  ?  If  the  robbery  of 
our  land,  the  robbery  of  our  franchise  and  our  legislation, 
the  imprisonment  and  murder  of  their  defenders,  the  extinc- 
tion in  blood  of  freedom  of  debate  and  of  State  Equality,  — 
if  these  cannot  bring  us  to  unite  against  the  mighty  foe, 


80  THE    STATE    STRUCK  DOWN. 

what  can  ?  Will  the  mere  abrogation  of  a  commercial  re- 
striction, whereby  our  ships  cannot  bring  slaves  from  Africa, 
set  the  country  into  convulsions,  if  these  produce  only  mo- 
mentary spasms  ?  Will  the  declaration  that  internal  slave 
trade  is  as  lawful  as  the  internal  flour  trade,  and  that  no 
State  can  restrict  it,  bring  us  to  action?  These  are  all 
that  are  left,  and  these  are  but  merchantable  things.  They 
cannot  thrill  the  heart,  as  the  dreadful  scenes  have  through 
which  we  have  passed  for  the  last  few  years,  and  are  still 
passing.  They  will  no  more  restore  us  to  life  than  the  last 
faint  struggles  of  the  dying  will  throw  off  that  conqueror 
whom  the  fearful  agonies  of  preceding  hours  had  wrestled 
with  in  vain. 

Say  not  so,  aged,  eminent,  conservative  a  man  as  he  who 
is  put  at  the  head  of  these  hosts,  will  never  lead  us  whither 
we  have  been  moving.  As  the  President  has  just  said  in 
reference  to  this  very  nomination,  "  Men  are  but  instru- 
ments." Pierce  has  done  no  more  than  Fillmore,  Fillmore 
than  Polk,  Polk  than  Tyler,  Tyler  than  Van  Buren.  Each 
did  all  that  the  Slave  Power  asked  of  them.  Each  did 
worse  than  his  predecessor,  simply  because  he  was  the  suc- 
cessor. If  the  present  Chief  Magistrate  had  occupied  his 
seat  four  years  before,  he  would  have  said,  had  you  charged 
him  with  his  present  deeds,  "  Is  thy  servant  a  dog,  that  he 
should  do  this  thing?"  He  would  only  have  signed  the 
Fugitive  Slave  Bill,  and  defeated  the  Proviso.  Four  years 
earlier  he  would  but  have  carried  on  the  war  with  Mexico. 
Four  years  earlier  merely  annexed  Texas.  Four  years  earlier 
simply  purged  the  mails  of  free  speech,  and  opposed  the 
purging  of  the  District  of  Columbia  of  Slavery.  "  Men  are 
but  instruments." 

Who  secured  the  nomination  of  this  venerable  man  by 
the  withdrawal  of  his  potent  name  from  the  canvass  ?  Who 
dictated  the  platform  on  which  this  Image  is  set  up  ?  Who 
will  be  the  chief  instrument  in  his  election,  if  he  obtains  it  ? 


ASSAULT   ON   CHARLES   SUMXER.  81 

—  which  may  God  in  His  mercy  prevent.  Who  will  be 
his  right  hand  supporter  in  his  administration  ?  The  boldest 
and  wickedest  of  all  the  bold  and  wicked  men  that  blacken 
our  history,  beside  whom  Arnold  and  Burr  are  models  of 
decency  and  religion.  They  sought  to  strangle  in  his  cradle 
the  Hercules  of  our  political  being,  when  as  yet  his  divinity 
could  be  seen  only  by  the  eye  of  faith.  He  assails  him  in 
the  height  of  his  strength,  when  he  stands  among  mankind 
the  only  cleanser  of  its  Augean  stables  of  royal  corruption, 
the  only  annihilator  of  its  hydra  oppressions,  the  only  one  able 
to  conquer  the  guards  of  the  pit,  and  bring  out  of  its  long 
death  the  beautiful  form  of  Civil  and  Religious  Freedom. 

He  it  is  that  by  a  previous  assault,  unparalleled  for  its 
coarseness  and  threats  of  violence,  instigated  those  blows, 
whose  remotest  as  well  as  immediate  effects' he  foresaw  and 
intended.  He  it  is,  that,  having  been  urged  to  the  rescue 
of  his  fellow-senator,  sat  calmly  through  the  beginning  of 
the  attack,  and  climbed,  as  he  himself  says,  on  a  high  back 
seat  at  its  close,  that  he  might  catch  a  glimpse  of  the  bleed- 
ing victim  as  he  was  borne  away ;  as  a  little  fraudulent 
leader  of  bad  men  in  an  ancient  time  climbed  to  a  high  seat 
that  he  might  see  Him  who  was  to  be  the  great  Sacrifice  for 
Eternal  Freedom,  though  unlike  Zaccheus,  no  penitence 
smote  his  conscience,  no  submission  and  conversion  fol- 
lowed the  sight.  He  did  more  than  begin  and  enjoy  an 
assault  on  a  peaceful  Senator ;  he  led  those  troops  of  Sin 
against  and  over  the  prostrated  landmarks  of  Freedom, 
prostrated  Territorial  and  State  sovereignty,  prostrated  law, 
and  right,  and  peace,  and  honor,  and  chastity,  and  life. 
This  is  the  head  and  fang  of  that  huge  serpent  which  "in 
many  a  scaly  fold,  voluminous  and  vast,"  coils  itself  around 
the  pillar  of  our  confederacy,  and  from  its  capital  "  hangs 
hissing  at  the  nobler  men  below."  He  is  the  power  greater 
than  the  President,  present  or  to  be,  who,  with  the  crowd 
of  violent  men  behind  him,  will  seek  to  cany  the  Evil, 
6 


82  THE    STATE    STRUCK  DOWN. 

whose  they  are  and  whom  they  serve,  to  a  permanent, 
universal  dominion. 

Then  cometh  the  end.  One  of  two  things  follows.  Un- 
questioned prostration  of  the  whole  country  under  the  hoof 
of  the  slave  power.  As  the  unslaveholding  South  to-day  is 
dumb  before  the  shearers  of  its  power  and  prosperity,  so 
shall  the  whole  land  be.  We  shall  be  thrust  into  a  seat  of 
infamy  lower  than  any  living  or  dead  nationality  can  occupy, 
beside  which  Roman  anarchy,  Greek  cowardice,  and  Jew- 
ish impiety  are  highest  excellence.  A  nation  of  Slaves  ! 
One  hundred  thousand  ignorant  and  brutal  men  the  mon- 
archs  of  twenty-five  millions  !  driving  us  into  the  Atlantic, 
if  they  so  list,  as  they  now  declare  they  can,  with  a  lady's 
riding  whip,*  —  filling  our  land  with  poverty,  vice,  and 
murder,  and  making  the  very  dust  of  our  patriot  sires  beg 
the  winds  of  heaven  to  bear  them  from  the  dishonored  soil ! 

What  a  spectacle  to  the  world  !  That  great  nation, 
stretching  over  more  territory  than  ever  saw  the  wing  of 
the  Roman  eagle,  whose  songs  have  all  been  set  to  the 
tune  of  Liberty,  whose  Constitution  and  laws  beat,  with  but 
few  discordant  notes,  the  same  inspiring  measure,  whose 
name  has  been  a  terror  to  tyrants  and  a  watchword  to 
patriots,  that  people  whose  God  has  been  the  Lord,  under 
the  feet  of  the  pirate  of  perdition !  The  star-spangled  ban- 
ner torn  down,  and  the  blood-red  flag  with  which  South 
Carolina  marches  through  fallen  Lawrence,  the  black  flag 
the  slave  ship  carries  across  the  free  ocean,  —  these  shall 

wave 

"  O'er  the  land  of  the  free  and  the  home  of  the  brave !  " 

Your  meadows  and  mountains  shall  be  covered  with  slaves, 
not  necessarily  black    in  the   face,  certainly  white   in  the 
blood,  the  very  images  of  us  their  fathers  and  mothers  ;  — 
poorest  of  whites,  ruled   over  by  the  desperadoes  of  the 

*  A  remark  made  in  Congress  by  Alexander  H.  Stephens. 


ASSAULT   ON   CHARLES   SUMNER.  83 

South,  and  their  satanic  allies  of  the  North  !  0  disastrous 
eclipse  !  0  shadow  worse  than  death !  The  light  gone 
from  earth,  the  hopes  of  man  blotted  out,  the  howl  of 
tyrants  exultant  and  universal  !  "  The  glory  of  kingdoms, 
the  beauty  of  the  Chaldees'  excellency,  shall  be  as  when 
God  overthrew  Sodom  and  Gomorrah.  Wild  beasts  of  the 
desert  shall  lie  there  ;  their  houses  shall  be  full  of  doleful 
creatures  ;  owls  shall  dwell  there,  and  satyrs  shall  dance 
there.  And  the  wild  beasts  of  the  islands  shall  cry  in  their 
desolate  houses,  and  dragons  in  their  pleasant  palaces ; 
and  her  time  is  near  to  come,  and  her  days  shall  not  be 
prolonged."  May  God  through  our  present  faithfulness 
prevent  this  fast-speeding  doom. 

The  second  alternative,  if  we  postpone  our  political 
reformation  to  the  presidential  contest  of  1860,  will  be  civil 
war.  If  the  North  has  courage  enough  to  fight,  though 
not  enough  to  vote  for  Liberty,  before  that  not  distant  period 
arrives  the  struggle  may  have  been  begun.  This  power, 
if  again  triumphant,  will  triumph  as  never  before.  Not 
smuggled  and  disguised,  but  openly  will  it  start  on  its 
new  career.  And  if  its  insolence  is  so  great  now,  if  its  de- 
mands are  so  unendurable,  what  will  they  be  when  it  puts 
on  the  crown  of  authority  that  the  People  will  offer  it  ?  If 
resisted,  it  must  be  under  the  smoke  of  battle.  The  bar- 
barities of  Kansas  and  Washington  will  be  repeated  in  ag- 
gravated forms  along  the  whole  border — over  the  whole 
land.  Those  extremes  will  be  joined  by  a  river  of  fire 
and  blood,  and  this  great  Republic  expire  in  the  ashes  of 
fraternal  flames. 

"  A  curse  will  light  upon  the  limbs  of  men, 
Domestic  fury  and  fierce  civil  strife 
Will  cumber  all  the  parts -of  this  fair  land. 
Blood  and  destruction  shall  be  so  in  use, 
And  dreadful  objects  so  familiar, 
That  mothers  shall  but  smile  when  they  behold 
Their  infants  quartered  with  the  hands  of  war. 


84  THE    STATE    STRUCK    DOWN. 

All  pity  choked  with  custom  of  fell  deeds, 
And  Freedom's  spirit  ranging  for  revenge, 
With  Fury  by  her  side,  come  hot  from  hell, 
Shall  in  these  confines  with  a  monarch's  voice 
Cry  '  Havoc,'  and  let  slip  the  dogs  of  war, 
That  these  foul  deeds  shall  smell  above  the  earth 
With  carrion  men,  groaning  for  burial." 


It  is  for  the  Christian  and  Patriot  of  this  day  to  say 
whether  or  no  one  of  these  dreadful  fates  shall  not  be 
ours.  It  is  for  us  to  say  if  Sumner's  seat,  the  site  of  Kansas' 
Lexingtons,  the  graves  of  Barbour,  Dow,  Brown,  Stewart, 
and  other  martyrs,  whose  sbd  is  for  the  first  time  green 
above  them,  shall  be  visited  by  a  victorious,  free  people, ' 
reverently  gazing  on  that  blood  shed  for  the  first  time  in 
our  history  in  defense  of  freedom  of  national  debate,  and 
those  ruins  and  graves,  attesting  the  zeal,  discretion,  and 
courage  of  the  first  banded  defenders  of  our  principles  in  the 
field  of  fraternal  strife,  or  if  they  shall  be  disregarded,  as  the 
Greek  of  to-day  knows  not,  and  cares  not  to  know,  the  spot 
where  the  three  hundred  saved  Greece  and  the  world  their' 
liberties,  or  where  the  great  orator  patriot,  Demosthenes, 
banished,  fell  by  a  sacred  and  privileged  altar,  anticipating 
but  for  a  moment  the  tortures  intended  for  him  by  his  per- 
secutors —  the  tyrants  of  Athens,  and  the  destroyers  of  her 
name  and  power  unto  this  day  ? 

Eead  the  great  speech  which  excited  such  rage,  and  well 
nigh  won  for  its  author  the  crown  of  a  martyr.  For  before 
he  uttered  a  word  he  knew  its  probable  effect ;  he  measured 
the  danger  before  he  struck  the  blow.  But  three  or  four  in 
all  histor}1-  are  its  equals  in  beauty  and  strength  of  thought 
arid  language.  Demosthenes  against  the  Philipizing  Doug- 
las of  Athens,  the  keen,  ready,  insolent  tool  of  her  tyrants ; 
Cicero  against  the  Atchison  Catiline  of  the  Roman  republic  ; 
Burke  against  Hastings,  the  wholesale  enslaver  of  India; 
Webster  against  the  South  Carolinian  traducer  of  freedom 


ASSAULT   ON   CHARLES    SUMNER.  85 

and  its  fruits,  —  with  those  four,  this  stands,  and  will  always 
stand,  equal  to  the  highest  in  all  the  literary  qualities  of  an 
oration,  higher  than  the  highest  in  the  sweep  of  his  theme 
—  the  preservation  of  the  liberty,  culture,  and  religion  of  a 
great  Christian  nation.  Let  every  man,  and  woman,  arid 
child  frequently  read  it.  Kead  it  in  a  spirit  of  humiliation 
and  prayer.  Read  it  for  our  guidance  in  this  crisis  as  we 
do  the  Bible  for  our  guidance  in  this  and  all. 

Let  us  repent  and  forsake  our  slothfulness,  our  prejudices, 
our  cowardice.  Let  us  surrender  all  minor  duties  to  this 
preeminent  human  duty,  second  only  to  the  salvation  of 
.souls,  and  even  involving  their  eternal  weal  or  woe  in  its 
measureless  results.  Let  us  engage  in  the  great  civil  and 
moral  warfare  before  us  with  a  oneness  of  heart  and  will 
that  insures  the  victory.  The  sun  that  shall  roll  over 
this  earth  for  the.  next  few  months  will  look  down  on  as 
important  a  conflict  as  has  ever  been  waged  upon  it.  The 
sons  of  God  who  shouted  together  over  its  creation  never 
more  anxiously  watched  the  movements  of  men,  never  more 
heartily  identified  themselves  with  the  friends  of  freedom, 
than  they  watch  over  and  work  with  us  to-day.  The  lovers 
of  our  race,  wasting  in  exile,  or  rotting  in  European  dun- 
geons will  be  our  heartiest  allies.  The  poor  slave  will  pray 
in  many  a  cabin  that  the  North  may  win. 

If  we  conquer,  the  long  nightmare  of  our  country  is 
gone,  the  overflowing  scourge  is  stayed.  Wisely,  lovingly, 
steadily,  we  shall  move  up  out  of  the  ghastly  gloom  into 
the  light  of  our  earlier  day.  Shouts  of  joy  will  echo  in  the 
cells  of  European  liberty,  pallor  and  trembling  seize  on 
European  t}rrants.  Let  us  once  stand  forth  in  the  full  glory 
of  constitutional  freedom,  and  the  millennium  morn  breaks 
full-orbed  upon  our  land.  Unspeakable  gladness  will  over- 
whelm the  hearts  of  four  millions  of  our  kindred,  grinding 
in  these  prison-houses  of  the  South.  Unspeakable  fears 
and  smitings  of  the  knees  will  shake  their  fierce  devourers. 


86  THE   STATE    STRUCK   DOWN. 

But  if  we  should  fail, — if  the  cunning  and  vehemence  of 
our  enemies,  the  heartlessness  and  blindness  of  the  masses, 
continue  the  power  with  its  present  blood-stained  possess- 
ors, the  victory,  though  in  another  patli  less  peaceful,  will 
surely  come.  Though  they  kill  the  Freedom  of  the  State, 
the  heir  of  all  the  treasures  of  the  nation,  though  they  exult 
in  the  inheritance  which  they  will  then  say  is  incontesta- 
bly  theirs,  the  heir  shall  rise  again  with  twenty,  ay,  with 
twenty  thousand  mortal  murders  on  his  crown  to  push  them 
from  their  stools.  The  principles  of  His  government  and 
attributes  of  His  nature  tha,t  have  been  given  to  man  shall 
not  be  blotted  from  the  earth.  Through  the  tearing  asunder 
of  the  national  ties  perhaps,  through  the  flames  of  awful 
war,  through  blood  up  to  the  horses'  bridles,  we  may  have  to 
wade  to  the  peaceful  glories  of  a  Republic  of  universal  free- 
dom. May  He  preserve  us  from  this  calamity,  yet  give  us 
grace  to  meet  it  if  it  come  upon  us.  If  it  shall  come,  and 
after  it  is  passed,  from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific,  from 
Labrador  to  Virginia,  shall  stretch  a  vast  confederacy  of  free 
and  prosperous  States,  even  if  over  those  Southern  valleys 
of  the  plain  a  dead  sea  of  tribulation  shall  continue  to  roll. 

"  Our  bleak  hills  shall  bud  and  blow, 
Vines  our  rocks  shall  overgrow, 
Plenty  in  our  valleys  flow  ; 
And  when  vengeance  lights  their  skies, 
Hither  shall  they  turn  their  eyes, 
As  the  damned  on  Paradise. 
We  but  ask  our  rocky  strand, 
Freedom's  true  and  brother  band, 
Freedom's  brown  and  honest  hand, 
Valleys  by  the  slave  untrod, 
And  the  Pilgrims'  rugged  sod, 
Blessed  of  our  Father,  God." 


THE   NATIONAL   MIDNIGHT.* 


"AND  WHEN  I  LOOKED,  BEHOLD,  A  HAND  WAS  SENT  UNTO  ME;  AND 
LO,  A  ROLL  OF  A  BOOK  WAS  THEREIN;  AND  HE  SPREAD  IT  BEFORE 
ME",  AND  IT  WAS  WRITTEN  WITHIN  AND  WITHOUT;  AND  THERE 
WAS  WRITTEN  THEREIN  LAMENTATIONS,  AND  MOURNING,  AND  WOE." 

—  Ezekiel  ii.  9,   10. 

TIE  great  battle  is  over,  and  the  Slave  Power,  as 
of  old,  as  in  all  our  national  conflicts,  when  its 
dominion  has  been  contested,  remains  master  of 
the  field.  We  come,  my  brethren,  under  its  per- 
mission, to  consider  the  results  of  the  battle  —  a  permission 
granted  us  for  the  present,  and  because  we  are  in  this 
remote  New  England  ;  a  permission  forbidden  our  brothers 
under  the  hoof  of  this  Satan,  forbidden  even  our  own  na- 
tional representatives,  who  are  soon  to  assemble  at  the  foot 
of  its  throne  ;  a  privilege  soon  to  be  forbidden  us  in  this 
distant  locality,  and  soon  to  be  resigned  by  us,  unless  God, 
in  His  infinite  grace  and  providence,  shall  interpose  for  our 
national  salvation. 

Before  we  unroll  the  book  which  the  hand  of  experience 

*  A  sermon  preached  at  Westfleld,  Mass.,  November  1C,  1850,  on  the 
occasion  of  the  election  of  James  Buchanan  to  the  Presidency  of  the 
United  States.  See  Note  III. 

(87) 


88  THE   NATIONAL   MIDNIGHT. 

and  truth  has  sent  out  to  us,  the  roll  of  our  fast-coming 
history,  —  we  will  seek  to  remove  two  obstacles  that  some 
think  should  seal  our  lips  with  dumbness.  They  are,  that 
we  are  attacking  an  ancient  and  honorable  political  party, 
and  that  we  are  intruding  in  priestly  vestments  upon  for- 
bidden ground. 

Both  of  these  objections  are  answered  by  an  examination 
of  the  battle-cries  of  the  campaign.  What  were  the  shouts 
that  went  up  from  every  corner  of  the  vast  field  ?  that  rung 
out  over  all  the  land  and  all  the  world  ?  Not  tariff  and 
free  trade,  not  banks  and  sub-treasury,  not  retrenchment  in 
the  public  expenditures,  not  foreign  aggressions  or  sailors' 
rights  —  a  cry  that  shook  the  land  in  the  days  of  Madison. 

Three  war-cries  freight  the  air  —  Disunion,  Romanism, 
Slavery.  These  three  fears  assailed  the  hearts  of  the 
people.  Every  one  of  them  is  a  moral,  a  religious,  a 
Christian  question.  Every  one  of  them  demands  the  earnest 
attention  of  the  minister  of  Christ.  If  he  cannot  discuss 
these  evils  ;  if  he  cannot  present  to  your  consciences  that 
among  them  which  is  the  most  threatening  and  deadly, 
when  it  excels  all  others,  and  thrusts  its  poisoned  dagger 
into  the  vitals  of  the  national  honor,  and  even  life  ;  if  he 
cannot  descry  and  declare  the  form  and  the  coming  of  Anti- 
christ, and  rally  the  allies  of  the  Lord  Jesus  to  his  over- 
throw, —  when  can  he  speak  ? 

These  censures  come  chiefly  from  those  who  have  no 
experimental  knowledge  of  Christian  faith  and  duties  ;  who 
are  rejecters  of  Christ,  and  especial  haters  of  His  ambassa- 
dors. They  are  hardly  competent  to  teach  the  preachers  of 
the  Gospel  the  message  He  commissions  them  to  bear.  It 
will  be  well  for  these  self-appointed,  and  somewhat  too 
self-important,  overseers  of  the  ministry,  to  remember  that 
not  one  word  of  instruction,  as  recorded  in  this  Book,  for- 
bids the  discussion  of  every  question  that  affects  humanity. 
Their  mission  is  to  preach  a  full  salvation,  salvation  from 


ELECTION   OF   JAMES   BUCHANAN.  89 

all  sin,  personal,  social,  national.  It  is  to  rebuke  all  iniquity 
in  high  places  or  low,  whether  centering  in  the  palace  or 
rioting  in  the  multitudinous  madness  of  the  whole  nation. 
So  far  from  being  forbidden  to  intermeddle  in  national  and 
political  matters,  they  are,  by  the  especial  orders  of  God 
Himself,  given  to  many  of  their  predecessors,  and  by  His 
general  orders,  issued  alike  to  all,  especially  commanded  to 
interfere  in  the  affairs  of  men.  While  to  all  other  digni- 
taries it  is  said,  "  Touch  not  mine  anointed,  and  do  my 
prophets  no  harm  ;"  to  them  He  commands  to  preach  before 
all  offenders  the  preaching  He  gives  unto  them.  While  David, 
the  general  and  the  politician,  for  only  eating  the  bread  of 
the  priests,  endangered  his  life  ;  while  he  was  forbidden  to 
touch  the  ark,  priest  and  prophet  were  commanded  to  meddle 
with  his  private  as  well  as  official  affairs,  and  to  pierce  his 
soul  in^the  very  hour  of  his  pride  and  vain-glory. 

While  King  Uzziah  was  smitten  with  leprosy  for  his  in- 
terference with  the  duties  of  the  minister,  the  ministers 
Elijah  and  Elisha,  confronted,  by  God's  order,  the  ungodly 
king  of  Israel,  when  he  was  seeking,  for  personal  ends,  the 
ruin  of  the  nation.  Paul  reasoned  with  Governor  Felix  on 
his  official  no  less  than  his  personal  sins.  Everywhere  God 
puts  this  peculiar  honor  on  His  servant,  giving  him  au- 
thority to  rebuke  kings  and  nations,  and  forbidding  them  to 
rebuke  him. 

It  is  one  of  the  devices  of  Satan  by  which  he  seeks  to 
harden  your  hearts  against  the  truth,  and  make  you  deaf 
to  your  duty  against  the  greatest  sin  of  this  or  of  any  age, 
that  the  servant  of  Christ  must  not  expose  it,  because, 
forsooth,  it  has  compelled  a  political  pai'ty  to  become  its 
most  active  slave.  What  is  this  "consecrated  politics  "  that 
is  beyond  the  reach  of  the  Word  of  God,  and  too  sacred*  to  be 
condemned  by  Him  ?  Ah,  my  friends,  it  is  not  the  sacred- 
ness,  nor  the  political  relations,  of  the  theme  that  causes 
this  denunciation  of  God's  ministers,  but  because  it  is  so 


90  THE   NATIONAL   MIDNIGHT. 

thoroughly  interwoven  with  the  ambition,  wealth,  trade,  and 
fashion  of  the  land.  Therefore  they  seek  to  screen  it  from 
the  wrath  of  God,  and  defame  His  servants,  who  dare  de- 
nounce it,  as  traveling  beyond  their  province  in  human  affairs 
over  which  God  has  set  them. 

They  cry  out,  as  did  Mr.  Douglas  to  the  thousands  of 
God's  ministers,  "Let  State  affairs  alone."  "Attend  to 
your  concerns,  while  we  are  allowed  to  plunder  and  murder 
at  our  will  all  the  interests  of  freedom  and  religion."  Far 
more  properly  may  the  highwayman,  while  he  is  knocking 
down  and  plundering  his  victims,  command  them  to  desist 
from  preaching  against  theft,  and  confine  their  discourse  to 
the  abstract  nature  of  God,  or  sin,  or  holiness. 

Ministers  are  tarred  and  feathered,  are  scourged  and  shot 
by  the  nefarious  power  of  slavery,  and  that,  too,  because 
they  are  ministers.  Aged  and  eminent  members  of  the 
church  have  been  killed  in  attempting  to  save  the  lives  of 
their  ministerial  brethren.  Clergymen  are  treated  with  foul 
slanders,  by  the  chiefs  of  the  Republic,  for  a  respectful  and 
solemn  petition.  But  when  all  these  persistent  and  organ- 
ized acts  of  hostility  are  waged  against  them  and  their 
cause,  they  must  not  open  their  lips  in  defense,  not  of  them- 
selves, but  even  of  Christ  and  His  children,  bought  and  sold 
by  wicked  men,  because  it  is  interfering  with  politics. 

Away  with  all  such  blasphemous  folly.  We  ask  no  par- 
don for  entering  this  arena.  The  greatest  crimes  that  ever 
broke  away  from  hell,  and  emerged  on  this  fair  earth,  are 
being  defiantly  committed  by  the  rulers  of  this  nation  — 
crimes  against  every  virtue,  every  grace,  every  joy  ;  crimes 
of  which  robbery  of  purse  and  murder  of  the  body  are  its 
least  expressions.  Robbery  of  the  man  himself,  not  his 
pennies,  murder  of  his  soul,  not  his  body  merely,  are  its 
daily,  its  hourly  deeds.  God  forbid  that  I  should  keep 
silence.  "  Son  of  man,"  says  the  same  Voice  to  the  same 
listener,  whose  words  are  the  motto  for  our  discourse,  says 


ELECTION   OF   JAMES   BUCHANAN.  91 

the  same  Voice  to  every  one  of  His  ambassadors  in  every 
age,  "  Son  of  man,  get  thee  unto  the  house  of  Israel,  and 
speak  My  words  unto  them.  For  thou  art  not  sent  to  a 
people  of  a  strange  speech  and  of  a  hard  language,  but  to 
the  house  of  Israel,  son  of  man." 

But  not  from  these  rebellious  hearts  do  we  expect  a  favor- 
able ear.  There  are,  however,  a  few  who,  though  knowing 
the  power  of  Christ  and  the  obligation  of  Christians,  have 
fallen  into  this  error.  Not  because  they  doubt  the  right 
and  duty  of  the  minister  of  Christ  to  denounce  national 
sins,  but  because  they  deny  that  these  sins  have  become  the 
life  and  power  of  the  party  they  support.  Prove  this  to 
them,  and  they  will  be  among  the  most  earnest  supporters 
of  their  brethren  in  these  declarations.  It  is  to  these  and 
all  other  followers  of  Christ,  and  well-wishers  of  His  cause, 
that  I  appeal  to-night.  I  ask  your  serious  and  prayerful 
investigation  of  the  subject  before  us.  I  come  in  no  parti- 
san spirit.  The  Spirit  of  the  Lord  God,  I  humbly  trust,  is 
upon  me.  I  come  not  to  secure  the  triumph  of  any  political 
organization  as  such,  but  to  present  the  truth  as  it  exhibits 
itself  in  the  roll  of  recent  history,  and  is  rapidly  unfolding 
its  fearful  future  —  lamentations,  mourning,  and  woe. 

I  must  speak  plain  words.  I  shall  not  hesitate,  as  have 
not  my  forerunners  in  this  sacred  office,  to  mention  by  name 
the  individuals  and  organizations  that  have  wrought  our  fall, 
and  are  preparing  to  lead  us  onward  and  downward  to  yet 
more  horrible  crimes,  even  to  the  spoiling  of  the  whole  peo- 
ple of  all  the  treasures  of  freedom  and  religion  which  their 
fathers  left  them.  I  may  speak  to  incredulous  ears.  So 
did  Jeremiah  and  Josiah,  and  John  the  Baptist,  and  Christ. 
How  vividly  the  authority  that  commissioned  Ezekiel  sounds 
in  our  ears,  both  its  orders  and  the  reception  of  them  and  of 
those  who  proclaim  them  by  those  to  whom  the  word  is  sent! 
—  "  Son  of  man,  I  send  thee  unto  the  children  of  Israel,  to  a 
rebellious  nation,  that  have  rebelled  against  me  ;  they  and 


92  THE   NATIONAL  MIDNIGHT. 

their  fathers  have  transgressed  against  me.  even  to  this  day. 
For  they  are  impudent  children  and  stiff-hearted.  I  do  send 
thee  unto  them,  and  thou  shalt  say  unto  them,  '  Thus  saith 
the  Lord.'  And  thou  shalt  speak  My  words  unto  them, 
whether  they  will  hear  or  whether  they  will  forbear  :  for 
they  are  most  rebellious.  But  thou,  son  of  man,  hear  what 
I  say  unto  thee.  Be  not  thou  rebellious,  like  that  rebellious 
house.  Open  thy  mouth,  and  eat  that  I  give  unto  thee. 
And  when  I  looked,  behold,  a  hand  was  sent  unto  me,  and 
lo,  a  roll  of  a  book  was  therein.  And  lie  spread  it  before 
me.  And  it  was  written  within  and  without.  And  there 
was  written  therein  lamentations,  mourning',  and  woe." 

By  God's  grace,  I  will  obey  His  equally  painful  command 
to-night,  and  speak  His  words  to  a  house  that  I  hope  and  pray 
will  not  treat  them  as  Israel  did  those  uttered  by  His  servant 
of  old,  but  who  will  be  earnestly  sorry,  and  will  heartily  re- 
pent of  all  their  misdoings,  and  who  will  proceed  so  far  as  in 
them  lies  to  renew  the  land  again  in  repentance  and  salvation. 

We  shall  consider,  — 

1.  What  it  is  that  has  triumphed. 

2.  What  are  its  present  and  imminent  claims  and  pros- 
pects. 

3.  Why  Freedom  is  defeated. 

4.  What  are  our  encouragements  and  obligations  in  this 
hour  of  our  failure. 

I.   What  is  it  that  has  triumphed  ? 

Not  the  Democratic  party.  Not  any  mere  political  organ- 
ization working  for  political  ends.  I  know  the  name  it 
takes.  As  Satan  entered  that  creature  that  was  above  all 
its  fellows  in  beauty  and  intelligence,  in  order  that  he  might 
overthrow  a  still  higher  creature  who  was  made  in  the 
image  of  God,  and  whose  destruction  would  be,  in  his  judg- 
ment, as  the  conquest  of  God  himself,  so  has  Satan  en- 
tered this  creature  of  human  wisdom  and  attraction,  this 
chiefest  of  the  instruments  of  our  political  excellence,  in 


ELECTION  OF   JAMES   BUCHANAN.  93 

order  to  ruin  that  very  life  which  makes  us  a  people,  the 
peculiar  people  of  God.  It  is  not,  therefore,  any  mere  form 
iu  which  this  Evil  is  embodied  that  must  be  called  the  victor. 
The  serpent  did  not  claim  nor  receive  the  honor  of  inducing 
Adam  to  sin.  This  party  in  American  politics,  as  that  form 
of  the  animal  kingdom,  unless  it  is  penitent  and  abandons 
speedily  the  evil  that  possesses  it,  will  be  cursed  above  all 
the  other  instrumentalities  that  have  been  the  favored  ser- 
vants of  the  nation,  and  be  doomed  to  the  basest  fate. 
Upon  its  belly  shall  it  go,  and  dust  shall  it  eat,  till  it  returns 
to  dust  and  nothingness. 

But  while  the  Democratic  party  may  lose  its  high  position, 
as  it  has  lost  its  high  character,  the  Evil  that  has  ruined  it, 
that  has  already  corrupted,  and  afterward  destroyed,  two 
other  great  parties  will  still  confront  us.  The  Slave  Power, 
not  any  political  party,  exults  in  this  victory,  and  rejoices 
in  hope  of  everlasting  dominion. 

To  prove  this,  it  is  only  necessary  to  revert  to  the  scenes 
and  sounds  that  have  filled  the  land  in  the  last  few  months. 
Look  on  the  banners  that  have  brightened  or  gloomed  the 
air.  Hardly  a  topic  has  had  any  prominence  in  the  can- 
vass that  did  not  concern  slavery.  Shall  Kansas  be  free  or 
slave  ?  Shall  the  Ostend  Manifesto  prevail,  which  declares 
we  will  steal  Cuba  for  slavery,  if  its  government  will  not 
sell  her  for  that  purpose  ?  Shall  all  the  territories  be  thrown 
open  to  the  foul  foot  of  this  monster  under  the  wicked  lie 
of  popular  sovereignty  ?  Shall  Nicaragua  bring  her  gift  of 
trampled  freedom,  and  lay  herself  at  its  grateful  feet  ? 
These  have  been  the  warnings  of  the  friends  of  liberty  and 
their  country.  How  have  they  been  met  ?  By  cries  of 
reform,  free  trade,  specie  currency,  and  equal  rights  —  any 
of  the  ancient  watchwords  of  that  party,  by  which  it  has 
so  often,  and  so  rightfully,  swept  the  field  ?  Not  a  syllable 
of  these.  How  glad  would  they  have  been  to  have  used 
those  famous  battle-cries  ?  Their  transparencies  and  ban- 


94  THE   NATIONAL   MIDNIGHT. 

ners,  their  papers  and  speeches,  have  rung  no  change  on  these 
their  favorite  themes.  Disunion,  sectionalism,  popular  sov- 
ereignty, have  been  their  declaration  of  principles ;  the 
first  two  as  bulwarks  against  the  destructive  artillery  of 
their  foes  ;  the  last,  the  specious  form  in  which  this  demon 
now  arrays  himself  to  tempt  and  slay  the  nation.  There- 
fore, by  the  forced  confession  of  its  unwilling  confederates, 
as  well  as  by  the  earnest  assertion  of  its  passionate  devo- 
tees, Slavery  is  the  actual  victor.  It  shouts  defiance  over 
prostrate  liberty.  Read  the  Southern  journals  ;  read  the 
speeches  of  those  who  made  the  platform  and  appointed  its 
Executive  attorney,  and  you  will  see  that  Slavery  alone  is 
the  crowned  monarch  of  America  for  the  coming  reign. 
Said  Judge  Johnson,  of  Georgia,  under  the  shadow  of  Inde- 
pendence Hall,  ' '  The  question  of  this  campaign  is  whether 
we  can  buy  and  sell  labor  as  we  buy  and  sell  cattle." 

And  now,  my  friends,  let  us  pause  and  gaze  a  moment 
at  the  monster  we  have  set  over  us.  We  are  so  familiar 
with  the  word  '•'  slavery"  that  its  real  scope  and  character 
do  not  smite  the  eye  with  a  true  horror.  If  this  nation  stood 
to-day  perfectly  free  from  this  iniquity,  and  could  behold  it 
approaching  its  shores,  and  demanding  the  sovereignty,  we 
should  rise  up  as  one  man  against  the  hellish  foe.  Our 
fright  at  the  coming  of  the  Pope,  and  his  enthronement 
among  us,  at  our  possible  subjection  to  Czar  or  Sultan, 
would  be  a  courage  and  a  joy  to  that  which  would  palsy  our 
soul  when  this  prince  of  darkness  rose  up  before  us.  We 
talk  about  it  as  flippantly  and  thoughtlessly  as  we  do  about 
the  weather.  We  shudder  at  Mormon  polygamy,  at  Mexi- 
can anarchies,  at  British  domination  on  the  North,  at  the 
surrender  of  a  fraction  of  the  Pacific  Coast  to  her  hands. 
All  these  are  angels  of  light  in  comparison  with  that  which 
excites  but  the  feeblest  fear.  We  call  it  patriarchal,  scrip- 
tural, domestic,  respectable,  Christian.  We  declare  that  it 
has  the  right  to  enter  and  abide  in  any  State  or  Territory,  if 


ELECTION   OF   JAMES    BUCHANAN.  95 

a  majority  of  its  white  men,  who  care  enough  about  the 
matter  to  vote  upon  it,  shall  choose  to  allow  it.  Many 
pleasant  things  are  said  concerning  it,  and,  though  it  -has 
some  bad  features,  as  an  eminent  New  York  divine  has  said, 
"  they  are  only  such  as  are  incident  to  every  other  human 
relation." 

AVhat  is  it  that  is  so  nice  and  honorable,  and  pious  and 
Biblical  ?  It  is  the  taking  of  a  human  being,  and  selling 
hirn  like  a  beast.  It  is  the  working  of  him  without  recom- 
pense ;  refusing  his  mind  the  light  it  seeks  ;  refusing  his 
soul  the  grace  it  needs  ;  refusing  his  heart  the  affections  it 
craves ;  making  his  conjugal,  parental,  and  filial  ties  depend 
upon  his  master's  pleasure.  This  is  Slavery,  American  Sla- 
very, the  only  Ruler  in  the  Republic  of  the  United  States. 

Consider  the  abominations  it  sets  up,  not  casual,  inciden- 
tal, perishable  offshoots,  but  its  essential  and  inevitable  life  ; 
its  blood  and  being. 

Beg'in  at  its  beginning.  In  the  cot  of  poor  parents  a 
child  is  born.  Not  in  Africa,  but  in  America,  under  the 
Capitol  itself,  that  stands  so  proudly  in  the  very  heart  of 
the  land.  Their  breasts  thrill  with  joy  unspeakable,  as  yours, 
parents,  when  God  sends  such  an  angel  to  your  arms.  They 
feel  and  accept  the  sacred  responsibility.  The  father  lays 
plans  for  his  future,  in  all  of  which  this  babe  holds  a  promi- 
nent place.  "  He  shall  bear  my  name,"  he  says  to  himself, 
"to  coming  generations.  Through  him  I  will  build  up  my 
family  in  the  earth."  The  parents  talk  over  the  name  by 
which  he  shall  be  called,  his  education,  his  profession,  his 
whole  future  life.  They  grow  happy  in  his  growth,  famous 
in  his  fame.  In  the  midst  of  their  blissful  dreams,  a  man 
enters,  perhaps  a  member  of  the  church,  a  minister  even  of 
Jesus  Christ,  and,  paying  no  attention  to  the  outflow  of  the 
parental  nature,  not  even  regarding  its  first  wish, — that  of 
a  name  of  their  choice, — says,  "Don't  trouble  yourself 
about  that.  Call  him  Tom,  or  Caesar,  or  January,"  or 


96  THE  NATIONAL  MIDNIGHT. 

whatever  odd  or  fancy  name  comes  into  his  mind.  "  Don't 
worry  about  his  future.  Though  his  father,  you  have  nothing 
to  do  with  that."  He  follows  the  condition  of  his  mother. 
She  is  a  slave.  All  the  freedom  enjoyed  by  his  father,  if  he 
happens  to  have  a  little  nominal  liberty,  avails  him  nought. 
She  is,  perhaps,  allowed  to  care  for  him,  for  a  few  moments  a 
day,  taken  from  her  toil  in  the  field.  But  this  privilege  may 
be  taken  away  at  any  moment.  The  master's  whim  or  necessity 
may  sell  the  babe  from  his  mother's  breast.  Hastening  to  her 
hut  to  feed  him,  she  may  find  him  gone.  Put  upon  the  block 
with  him,  the  piirchaser  may  decline  the  incumbrance,  and  the 
child  is  tossed  aside  as  a  worthless  bit  of  baggage,  and  his 
mother  driven  away  in  an  agony  that  God  only  knows  or 
can  avenge.  These  cases  occur  by  the  thousands.  This  it  is 
to  be  born  a  slave.  Thus  is  this  wonderful  gift  of  Heaven, 
this  soul  fashioned  in  the  similitude  of  God,  this  beautiful 
house  of  clay,  tented  with  his  loving  and  artistic  hand,  de- 
based by  the  wickedness  of  man.  It  is  snatched  from  its 
father's  arms,  and,  after  being  left  perhaps  for  a  day  or  two 
upon  its  mother's  breast,  is  set  up  in  the  market-place, 
knocked  down  to  the  chance  bidder,  and  sent  on  the  doleful 
~p;tth  of  a  horrible  future. 

\V  ho  gave  this  crime  power  to  thus  legally  tear  the  child 
from  its  father,  and  declare  its  mother  was  its  sole  represen- 
tative ?  Whence  comes  that  law  ?  Is  the  woman  the 
appointed  head  of  the  family  ?  Is  she  its  exclusive  head  ? 
Does  the  son  never  represent  the  father  ?  Is  the  law  of 
primogeniture  so  popular  in  all  ages,  and  so  frequently  sug- 
gested in  the  Scriptures,  contradictory  to  all  human  ex-^ 
perience  ?  Is  there  any  such  law  among  even  the  lower 
animals,  with  whom  their  "owner"  rates  them  ?  Nay,  it  is 
simply  the  arbitrary  will  of  the  robber  who  has  stolen  this 
child  from  his  parents,  as  he  has  stolen  the  parents  from 
themselves  ;  who  robbed  him  of  his  freedom  before  he  was 
born,  and  now  steals  him  from  his  father,  to  whom  he  is  born, 


ELECTION   OF   JAMES   BUCHANAN.  97 

and  will  soon  steal  him  from  his  mother,  from  whom  he  is 
born.  It  claims  to  be  from  Rome.  It  is  from  the  Devil. 

But  the  crime  does  not  stop  here.  If  the  babe  was  actual- 
ly given  to  its  mother,  though  its  father  were  excluded,  it 
might  yet  be  well.  She  would  act  her  own  and  her  hus- 
band's part,  and  lavish  on  the  bereaved  and  beloved  one  a 
double  portion  of  her  heart.  But  it  is  not  hers.  It  follows 
her  condition,  not  her.  She  is  property.  So  are  her  babes. 
She  is  not  her  own  property.  They  are  not  hers.  She  is 
subject  to  her  master's  fortune.  They  must  follow  her  fate. 
Her  daughter  —  what  horrors  arise  in  her  soul  as  she  looks 
upon  that  lovely  infant  —  her  daughter !  What  a  fate 
awaits  her  !  What  a  life  of  toil,  of  infamy,  of  ignorance,  of 
suffering!  the  more  beautiful,  the  more  awful.  Naturally 
may  she  be  tempted  to  deliver,  by  the  stroke  of  death,  that 
beautiful  body,  and  more  beautiful  soul,  from  its  unutterable 
future. 

Both  parents  are  thus  robbed  of  this  darling  gift  of  God, 
not  by  the  gipsy  snatch,  rare  and  lawless,  not  by  a  whirl 
of  maddening  passion,  but  by  sober  and  written  Law,  where- 
of ministers  and  members  of  the  professed  Church  of  Christ, 
statesmen  of  the  highest  rank,  judges  of  most  rigid  legal 
righteousness,  and  even  philanthropists  of  tender  hearts,  are 
the  enactors,  advocates,  arid  supporters.  How  horrible  our 
sin  !  How  more  horrible  will  be  our  punishment ! 

If  left  with  its  parents  for  a  season,  it  is  as  the  calf  is  left 
with  its  dam,  awaiting  the  owner's  need  or  wish.  Nay,  it 
has  less  privileges  than  that  creature,  for  the  animal's 
mother  may  train  it  after  her  nature,  to  the  utmost  of  her 
capacity.  These  sons  and  daughters  of  the  Lord  Almighty 
are  not  suffered  to  be  developed  by  their  affectionate  parents 
according  to  the  nature  He  has  given  them.  Though  per- 
mitted to  remain  in  their  arms,  they  are  forbidden  to  receive 
any  real  education.  They  must  not  be  taught  to  read  or  even 
pray.  They  grow  up,  a  youth  manly  and  self-reliant,  a  maiden 
7 


98  THE   NATIONAL   MIDNIGHT.. 

modest  and  comely.  Are  these  blessings  ?  To  your  sons 
and  daughters  they  are.  Not  so  with  this  piece  of  market- 
able flesh.  Their  heaviest  curse  is  their  intelligence,  their 
manliness,  their  modesty,  their  beauty.  For  their  fate 
violates  and  crushes  these  noble  instincts.  They  enter  the 
holy  estate  of  matrimony.  It  is  a  cheat  and  a  lie.  They  are 
coupled  like  cattle  subject  to  their  owner's  will.  He  takes 
that  wife  from  her  husband  at  any  impulse  of  passion,  the 
husband  from  his  wife  under  any  purpose  of  self-interest. 
They  are  parted  or  united  as  indifferently  as  you  would 
separate  a  yoke  of  oxen. 

And  this  is  Biblical,  patriarchal,  Christian.  This  is  what 
Abraham  practiced  and  Paul  commanded.  God  forbid  !  It 
is  a  vile  slander  on  the  Word  and  the  children  of  God. 
The  servitude  of  Abraham  and  of  the  Hebrew  bondmen  was 
as  the  servitude  of  factory  hands  to  their  employer,  or 
feudal  retainers  to  their  m.aster.  They  were  his  proper- 
ty only  as  you  are  the  property  of  the  man  who  employs 
you.  Abraham's  servants  could  have  left  him  at  any  time. 
One  he  sent  away  with  her  child  free,  by  the  orders  of 
his  wife  —  a  generosity  no  Southern  Abraham  is  equal  to. 
Our  jealous  Sarahs  sell  their  Hagars  and  Ishmaels  ;  they 
never  emancipate  them.  They  were  retainers,  armed  and 
independent.  One  of  his  slaves  was  the  head  of  his  house. 
Paul's  advice  was  to  you,  whether  in  shop  or  store,  "  Ser- 
vants, obey  your  masters."  God  in  this  word  sets  before 
us  the  law  of  employer  and  employed  —  the  great  rule  for 
the  management  of  free  industry ;  a  rule  that  is  fitted  for 
every  estate  on  earth,  for  every  relation,  duty,  and  hour  of 
eternity. 

This  sin  of  sins  against  God  and  man  has  no  small  and 
obscure  being.  It  rules  over  four  millions  of  immortal  souls. 
It  covers  with  its  death-shade  one  half  of  the  Republic.  It 
has  held  the  reins  of  power  under  other  drivers  these  many 
years,  and  now,  in  its  own  person,  it  openly  ascends  the 


ELECTION    OF   JAMES    BUCHANAN.  99 

chariot-seat.  A  weak  old  man,  and  a  debauched  party,  pro- 
fess to  be  charioteers,  but  this  demoniac  power  sits  on  their 
necks.  He  is  the  avowed,  he  the  sole,  owner  and  lessee  of 
America  —  her  imperator  and  tyrannus,  her  single  sovereign 
and  lord. 

Before  the  eyes  of  the  world,  beneath  the  eyes  of  Heaven 
and  of  Christ,  thus  stands  the  American  Republic  to-day. 
It  has  seen  its  threescore  years  and  ten,  and  if,  by  reason  of 
the  immense  strength  of  the  principles  received  from  its 
fathers,  it  has  reached  fourscore  years,  yet  is  its  strength 
labor  and  sorrow.  It  will  be  soon  cut  off  and  fly  away,  unless 
it  hastens  to -repent  and  forsake  utterly  this  unspeakable  in- 
iquity. Its  glory  is  gone.  "  Ichabod,"  "  Ichabod,"  is  on  all 
its  walls.  Freedom,  humanity,  religion,  are  excluded  from 
the  national  policy,  and  national  idea.  The  Declaration  of 
Independence,  which  inspired  Jefferson,  and  Adams,  and 
Lafayette,  and  Washington,  which  sustained  the  hearts  of 
the  people  with  its  breath  of  life  divine,  amid  the  terrible 
pressure  of  years  of  conflict,  which  received  political  form 
and  substance  in  our  Constitution, — that  Declaration,  as 
avowed  by  one  of  the  ablest  advocates  of  this  triumphant 
power,  and  as  adopted  by  all  its  leaders,  is  but  glittering- 
generalities,  unworthy  the  regard  of  sober  men,  although 
these  glittering  generalities  are  those  very  principles  with- 
out which  Christianity  is  a  lie  and  civilisation  a  dream. 

Thus  we  stand.  Clouds  and  darkness  are  round  about  us. 
The  air  is  pierced  with  lightning,  and  shaken  by  mutteriugs 
of  avenging  thunder. 

II.   What  shall  the  end  be  ? 

Some  suppose  that  the  party  retaining  the  power,  the 
party,  rather,  ascending  to  power,  wilt  be  very  gentle,  en- 
croaching on  no  one's  rights,  and  doing  nothing  to  advance 
its  own  ends.  We  read  in  some  journals  great  professions 
of  this  character.  They  have  thus  influenced  many  votes, 
and  doubtless  decided  the  contest.  Are  they  well  grounded  ? 


100  THE   NATIONAL   MIDNIGHT. 

I  have  no  desire  to  be  an  alarmist.  I  shall  strive  to  state 
only  what  is  probable,  and  what  is  logically  certain  to  be 
attempted.  I  know  there  are  thrills  of  terror  at  the  im- 
mense vote  for  freedom,  and  that  these  emotions  may  re- 
strain its  progress  along  the  course  which  its  position  and 
existence  compel  it  to  march.  I  do  not  say  the  slave  power 
will  attempt  to  carry  out  all  its  designs  ;  but  it  will  and 
must  push  forward  the  most  advanced  of  them  to  completion, 
and  encourage  the  less  developed  in  their  growth.  Such 
necessity  is  laid  upon  it.  It  is  consistent  with  every  human, 
with,  every  inhuman,  principle  that  actuates  its  disciples. 

Read  the  dreadful  programme  which  the  nation  by  last 
Tuesday's  action  has  declared  shall  be  hers  for  the  next 
quadrennian.  Note  that  in  all  the  list  there  is  not  one 
sentiment  of  true  Democracy,  humanity,  or  Christianity. 

First  and  foremost,  the  administration  will  put  forth  all  its 
power  to  make  Kansas  a  Slave  State.  Hear  the  reasons  for 
this  opinion  :  — 

1 .  They  have  set  their  heart  upon  it  —  carried  all  the 
preliminaries  up  to  the  last  act  but  one ;  carried  them  with  a 
rush,  a  violence,  a  madness,  which  has  not  hesitated  at  fraud, 
robbery,  arson,  and  murder.  They  will  not  abandon  the 
lands  they  have  stolen  from  the  Free  States,  and  which  they 
have  many  times  ravaged  by  bloody  hordes  ;  where  they 
have  committed  such  brutal  murders  as  to  give  them  a  name 
below  every  name  in  the  annals  of  man  ;  where  they  now 
(<  sit,  shapes  hot  from  hell,"  in  all  the  form  and  pomp  of 
sovereignty  that  obtains  in  Pandemonium  itself.  They  never 
will  resign  that  power  at  the  call  of  an  administration  of 
their  own  right  hand's  making.  These  bull-dogs  will  not 
let  go  their  grip  upon  the  throat  of  Kansas  by  any  cry  from 
Washington,  if  one  should  be  made.  But  it  will  not  be 
made.  They  know  too  well  that  (hey  are  Washington.  These 
janizaries  have  made  the  Sultan,  these  cardinals  the  Pope  ;  and 
they  are  too  wise  to  have  made  one  greater  than  themselves. 


ELECTION   OF   JAMES   BUCHANAN.  101 

2.  But  not  only  will  they  have  Kansas  because  they  have 
steeped  themselves   in   such  iniquity  to  get  it,  they  must 
have  it  of  political  necessity.     They  want   no  Free  State 
cordon  around  Missouri.     They  will  have  none  if  their  fierce 
and  tireless  zeal  can  prevent  it.      It  will  be  impossible  to 
keep  this  Slave  State  in  their  hands,  shot  through  as  it  is 
with  free  sentiments,  if  Kansas  becomes  free.     And  if  Mis- 
souri falls,  the  whole  demoniac  arch  totters  to  its  base,  and 
tumbles  to  the  nethermost  hell.      Kansas  or  nothing,  is  their 
clear  discernment    and    purpose.      For    slavery   in    Kansas 
they  will  fight,  because  they  are  thus  battling  for  slavery  in 
Virginia  and  South  Carolina.* 

3.  They  will  wage  this  conflict  to  its  issue,  because  suc- 
cess here  is  triumph  everywhere.     Kansas  theirs,  all  the 
Territories  will  be.     They  wish  for  no  more  compromises. 
They  want  no  barter  with   Freedom,  whereby  Slavery  and 
Liberty  shall  divide  the  Senate  between  them.     They  mean 
to   have  slavery  national,  and  freedom  not  even  sectional. 
Kansas   theirs,  and  this  triumph  is   sure.     The  law  of  the 
nation  will   then    decree    that  a    slaveholder    can   take  his 
"property"  with  him  into  any  of  the  Territories,  and  that 
no  local  organization  can  emancipate  them  ! 

Every  other  Territory  thus  subdued,  all  the  new  States 
will  wheel  into  the  Union  under  this  flag,  and  its-  triumph 
at  the  capital  is  assured  forever.  Utah  is  at  our  doors  with 
her  twin  institution,  in  its  professed  patriarchal  and  less 
abominable  nature.  She  unites  lovingly  with  slavery  in  the 
edict  of  her  ruler  to  all  the  "  saints  "  to  vote  for  him,  who 
declares  he  is  the  platform  upon  which  these  barbarisms  are 

*  The  hero  of  Kansas  became  the  martyr  of  Virginia.  In  the  name  and 
strength  of  his  Master,  John  Brown  struck  at  the  head  of  the  serpent 
after  he  had,  in  Kansas,  effectually  bruised  its  tail.  That  blow  revealed 
and  confirmed  the  instincts  of  both  contestants  on  this  then  distant  field. 
Kansas  included  the  whole  in  its  every  part. 


102  THE   NATIONAL   MIDNIGHT. 

to  dwell  tog-ether  under  their  own  territorial  vine  and  fig- 
tree,  with  none  to  molest  nor  make  them  afraid. 

Oregon  has  slaves  on  her  soil,  and  is  in  the  hands  of  men 
who  have  kept  off  a  State  organization  for  several  years, 
because  they  saw  that  the  country  was  not  ripe  to  receive 
her  as  a  Slave  State,  and  they  were  determined  she  should 
be  nothing*  else.  Washington  Territory  is  in  their  hands. 
So  are  New  Mexico  and  Nebraska.  Every  spot  of  our  na- 
tional domain  but  Minnesota.  And  she,  in  the  insolence 
of  this  triumph,  may  be  refused  admission,  unless  she  will 
put  this  broth  of  abominable  things  in  her  sacred  constitu- 
tional vessel. 

Outside  of  our  present  boundaries,  where  sweeps  not  her 
eye,  greedy  and  devouring  ?  Central  America  is  under  her 
feet.  Cuba  is  hotly  lusted  after.  The  three-headed  dog 
of  war  across  the  seas,  England,  France,  and  Spain,  guards 
the  Hesperides,  and  alone  preserves  these  golden  apples 
from  her  clutch. 

The  African  slave  trade  will  be  reopened  practically,  if 
not  by  legislative  act.  This  does  not  need  Congressional 
enactment  or  presidential  signature.  Let  Charleston,  New 
Orleans,  and  Mobile  offer  to  receive  these  Africans,  and  they 
will  be  introduced,  as  enslaved  Americans  now  go  to  these 
ports  from  Baltimore  and  Richmond,  under  the  protection 
of  our  national  flag  and  cannon. 

Silence  will  be  imposed  on  Congressional  lips.  Sumner's 
still  bleeding  head  and  wasting  frame  will  be  ever  before 
the  representatives  of  the  Free  States,  as  an  index  of  their 
fate,  if  they  dare  to  assail  this  execrable  shape.  Not  gutta 
percha  canes,  but  knife  and  pistol,  will  speedily  end  the  con- 
troversy at  the  Capitol.  Moving  northward,  silence  will  be 
laid  upon  the  press,  which  is  the  mouth  of  the  people.  Xo 
journal  will  be  allowed  to  condemn  the  national  institution. 
The  fiery  "Independent,"  the  vehement  "Tribune,"  the 
solid  white  heat  of  the  "  Liberator,"  the  long  uplifted 


ELECTION   OF   JAMES   BUCHANAN.  103 

trumpet  of  "  Zion's  Herald,"  the  first  of  all  journals  of  the 
Christian  Church  in  this  warfare,  and  not  the  least  in  energy 
and  influence,  the  "  National  Era,"  grand  oracle  of  grand 
men,  the  growing  multitude,  local,  urban,  and  rural,  that 
have  joined  their  voices  to  the  swelling  volume  of  indigna- 
tion, —  upon  them  the  administration  will  lay  its  hand,  and 
stifle  their  speech  or  their  life.  With  them  will  sink  into 
dumbness  every  minister  of  Christ  and  Liberty,  every 
speaker  who  urges  this  great  reform  from  any  stage,  every 
book  that  paints  the  horrors  of  the  hell  of  bondage,  and  fires 
the  hearts  of  the  people  with  a  burning  detestation  of  it  and 
of  its  defenders  ;  all  these  will  this  power  essay  to  repress, 
for  its  tyranny  will  be  everywhere,  and  will  everywhere  be 
in  peril  if  this  liberty  is  allowed.  Napoleon's  treatment  of 
the  press  will  be  as  the  little  finger  to  the  thick  loins  of  this 
American  despot. 

Finally,  slaves  will  be  adjudged  property  anywhere,  while  in 
transitu,  and  the  transit  may  be  months  in  occurring.  Slave- 
pens  will,  therefore,  be  a  necessity  of  New  York  and  Boston, 
and  the  slaves,  instead  of  being  sent  thither  for  shipment 
alone,  will  be  sold  as  openly  in  their  market-places,  as  in  those 
of  Richmond.  Then  comes  the  universal  reign  of  the  demon. 
The  nation  everywhere  submits  her  neck  to  the  yoke. 

You  turn  away  with  loathing  from  this  cup  of  horrors, 
and  denounce  it  as  the  offspring  of  a  disordered  brain.  My 
friends,  every  one  of  these  claims  is  openly  made  in  the 
leading  administration  journals  of  the  South,  and  avowed  by 
its  political  representatives,  while  their  Northern  allies  make 
no  objection,  but  keep  a  close  silence  upon  these  prepara- 
tions, and  expend  their  strength  of  argument  and  invective 
in  assailing  the  defenders  of  Jefferson  and  Washington,  of 
the  Declaration  and  the  Constitution,  of  humanity  and  Christ. 

Say  not,  "  Prophesy  smooth  things,  pleasant  things,  hope- 
ful things."  When  a  servant  of  the  Most  Holy  God  was 
requested  to  preach  a  political  sermon  before  his  king,  that 


104  THE   NATIONAL   MIDNIGHT. 

should  conform  to  the  general  current  of  expression  and 
flatter  the  pride  and  prospects  of  his  sovereign,  he  said, 
"As  the  LoTd  liveth,  what  my  God  saith,  that  will  I  speak." 
So  must  I  say,  so  far  as  I,  anxiously  seeking  for  the 
light,  am  able  to  discern  it.  This  contest  is  very  different 
from  all  this  nation  has  previously  waged.  If  it  had  not 
been,  ministers  would  not  have  engaged  so  earnestly  in  the 
canvass.  I  suppose  more  men  have  addressed  audiences  on 
the  issue  of  this  campaign  from  the  pulpit  than  from  the 
platform.  The  three  thousand  ministers  that  sent  up  from 
New  England  alone  that  solemn  denunciation,  in  the  name 
o£  Almighty  God,  against  the  Nebraska  sin,  have  probably, 
in  nearly  every  case,  uttered  their  warning  to  their  hearers 
in  the  last  few  months,  while  thousands  in  other  parts  of  the 
land  have  lifted  up  their  voices  in  the  general  appeal. 

These  "  political,"  "  gunpowder  priests,"  as  they  are 
called,  have  no  desire  to  interfere  in  mere  political  matters. 
They  are  servants  of  no  names  except  the  Name  that  is  above 
every  name,  whose  orders  they  dare  not  and  desire  not  to 
disobey.  I  warned  and  entreated  you  before  the  leader  of 
the  hosts  of  freedom  was  selected,  indifferent  as  to  who  he 
should  be,  far  from  confident  that  one  of  a  more  decided 
anti-slavery  character  would  not  have  been  a  better  captain. 
I  have  no  devotion  to  men.  It  is  the  cause  that  has  brought 
these  ministers  from  their  sacred  studies,  wherein  they  de- 
light, from  the  beds  of  the  dying  and  the  side  of  the  penitent 
inquirer  after  Jesus,  into  the  tumult  of  the  market-place,  the 
dust  and  whirl  and  thunder  of  battle.  It  is  Christ  for  whom 
they  are  preaching  and  praying  and  voting,  in  these  works 
as  much  as  in  the  more  regular  duties  of  their  calling. 

The  fact  that  Antichrist  has  secured  this  victory  proves 
that  it  will  not,  cannot  be  tamely  abandoned.  The  Slave 
Power  is  no  Hannibal,  to  waste  its  victorious  forces  in  luxury, 
while  Rome  is  not  yet  completely  captured.  Therefore  will 
the  administration  be  forced  to  serve  its  baleful  ends. 


ELECTION   OF   JAMES   BUCHANAN.  105 

Two  other  reasons  confirm  this  view.  1.  The  Slave  power 
must  advance  or  die.  It  is  a  bankrupt  swindler,  who  will 
have  to  abandon  his  show  of  wealth,  unless  he  can  extend 
his  villainies.  The  late  articles  in  the  "  Charleston  Standard," 
on  the  opening  of  the  foreign  slave  trade,  —  articles  of  great 
power,  which  should  be  pondered  by  every  thoughtful  man, 
—  prove  conclusively  that  they  will  die  unless  they  move 
forward.  Talk  about  resting  in  quiet  on  their  plantations, 
undisturbed  by  the  North.  Impossible.  Their  plantations 
would  soon  be  deserts,  their  homes  poorhouses,  and  not 
even  almshouses,  for  no  gifts  would  relieve  their  poverty. 
They  must  grow.  Land,  land,  they  must  have,  to  be  rifled 
of  its  virgin  sweets,  and  then  abandoned.  Slaves,  slaves, 
cheap  and  numerous,  to  till  these  lands  and  multiply  their 
wealth.  Thus  they  are  driven  deeper  and  deeper  into  this 
gulf  by  the  highest  pressure  on  man,  his  necessity  to  live. 
They  are  on  the  steed  of  destiny.  They  cannot  escape  this 
progress  in  evil  except  by  emancipation,  and  emancipation 
will  not  immediately  relieve  them.  They  must  leap  into  the 
chasm  before  they  can  fill  it. 

2.  But  they,  are  driven  on  in  this  inevitable  path  by  what 
will  be  to  them  a  yet  higher  motive — the  total  loss  of  all  their 
present  possessions.  Two  of  their  chief  men  have  said  that 
the  election  of  a  Free  State  President  would  have  killed 
slavery  in  twenty  years.  They  see  by  the  mighty  upris- 
ing in  the  North,  that  a  Free  State  President  will  soon  be 
elected,  and  under  the  inspiration  of  despair  they  will  work 
with  startling  vigor  during  this  brief  space  of  power  for 
their  future  safety.*  Fifty  thousand  men,  representing  three 
thousand  millions  of  property,  who  have  the  national  power 

*  How  vigorously  they  did  work,  history  shows.  They  transported  all 
our  fleet  into  distant  parts,  and  all  our  arms  into  Southern  arsenals. 
They  appropriated  our  treasury,  navy  and  war  departments  to  their  ends, 
and  left  this  administration,  at  its  close,  without  spirit  or  means  for  de- 
fense, much  less  for  aggression. 


106  THE   NATIONAL   MIDNIGHT. 

in  their  hands,  know  that  it  is  surely  passing  over  to  those 
who  will  make  this  vast  property  valueless.*  Will  they  not 
fight  as  no  men  have  ever  fought  in  this  nation  to  preserve 
their  power  and  possessions  ?  Suppose  that  a  system  of 
measures  were  already  commenced,  or  soon  to  be  inaugu- 
rated, which  would  make  every  bank  and  factory  and  farm, 
in  a  few  years  all  the  property  of  the  State,  but  beggars'  rags, 
would  not  our  citizens  do  all  in  their  power  to  avert  the 
catastrophe  ?  f  Would  not  fifty  thousand  robbers  defend 
three  thousand  millions  of  gold  which  they  had  stolen,  against 
all  the  bands  of  justice,  and  provide  in  every  possible  way 
for  its  preservation.  These  thousands  of  robbers,  from 
whom  I  exclude  all  conscientious  or  indifferent  slaveholders, 
are  the  assumed  protectors  of  three  thousand  millions  of 
stolen  property  —  God's  property,  made,  bought,  and  re- 
deemed by  Him,  to  be  His  treasure  and  joy  forever.  They 
have  the  government.  Are  they  going  to  be  easy  and  in- 
dulgent, and  give  you,  their  enemies,  all  the  victories  which 
you  would  have  had,  if  you  had  defeated  them  ?  I  speak 
as  unto  wise  men.  Judge  ye  what  I  say. 

III.  What  has  caused  this  defeat  ?  Why  did  not  truth 
and  right  prevail  ?  Why  were  not  the  horse  and  his  rider 
cast  into  the  sea  ?  For  reasons  such  as  are  seen  in  all  the 
struggles  of  liberty  and  Christianity  for  the  subjugation  of 
the  world  to  God.  Huss  and  his  people  must  die  before 
Luther  could  slay  their  murderer.  Bunker  Hill  must  be  lost 
before  Yorktown  could  be  gained.  Why  did  we  not  win  ? 

*  The  slave  property  was  valued  from  $2,000,000,000  to  $4,000,000,000, 
the  slaveholders  of  every  class  about  250,000.  This  includes  minors, 
women,  and  aged  men.  Its  controllers  were  far  less  than  50,000. 

f  A  striking  illustration  of  the  absorption  of  all  industry  into  the 
business  of  slavery  is  shown  by  the  statistics  of  Virginia  for  this  very 
year.  She  exported  over  $7.000,000  of  her  property  in  slaves ;  more  in 
value  than  her  tobacco,  wheat,  or  corn.  Slaves  rose  in  that  State  from 
$62  apiece  in  1789,  to  $500  in  1856.  Abolitionism  financially  ruined 
her,  and  she  knew  that  it  would. 


ELECTION   OF   JAMES   BUCHANAN.  107 

1.  Because  there  was  no  deep  repentance  of  the  real 
cause  of  these  shames  and  crimes,  and  no  true  sympathy 
with  their  chief  victims.  The  cause  is  slavery  ;  the  real 
victim  is  the  slave.  For  the  crime  we  have  sorrowed,  but 
not  after  a  godly  sort.  We  have  not  bemoaned  our  sins  of 
omission  and  commission  connected  with  it.  The  nation 
has  been  the  abettor  and  supporter  of  the  President  and  his 
iniquity.  Who  has  cried,  as  he  saw  his  own  cooperation  in 
this  sin  of  sins,  "  God  be  merciful  to  me  a  sinner"  ? 

We  have  had  no  tears  for  the  slave.  His  fate  has  not 
been  the  battle-cry  of  any  party.  "Free  Labor  is  in  peril!  " 
"Wliite  Labor,  our  labor!"  This  has  been  our  watchword  : 
not  the  rights  of  our  brethren,  but  our  own  purses.  How 
much  better  are  you  than  those  white  and  black  brethren 
that  groan  in  that  prison-house  of  death  ?  Millions  on  mil- 
lions are  scattered  over  more  than  half  our  organized  terri- 
tory, suffering  the  unspeakable  horrors  of  the  worst  tyranny 
outside  of  the  pit.  Bomba  of  Naples — before  whose  crimes 
all  Europe,  even  bloody  Napoleon  and  the  Nero  of  Austria, 
stand  aghast,  and  cry  aloud — inflicts  no  such  punishment 
on  his  victims  as  our  own  Southland  does  on  hers.  He 
never  tears  asunder  those  whom  God  has  joined  together, 
so  that  each  never  knows  through  all  their  bitter  life  where 
the  other  lives,  or  if  they  live.  He  never  snatches  the  babe 
from  its  mother's  arms,  and  sells  it  into  distant  lands. 
He  does  not  employ  the  fair  and  pious  maidens 'of  his  realm, 
as  the  other  domestic  animals,  for  the  raising  of  stock  for 
the  market,  or  strip  them  of  every  protection  of  the  law, 
and  cast  them  helpless  into  the  lustful  clutch  of  every  vaga- 
bond of  the  palace  and  the  street.  He  does  not  hunt  his 
laboring  people  through  the  thick  tangled  ravines  of  his 
lands  with  trained  bloodhounds,  nor  flog  them  to  death  at 
whipping-posts  on  every  farm  and  in  every  market-place, 
nor  burn  them  at  the  stake,  nor  pour  burning-fluid  over 
their  head  and  neck,  and  set  fire  to  it  in  order  that  he  may 


108  THE   NATIONAL   MIDNIGHT. 

enjoy  the  sport,  as  two  of  our  noblemen  did  not  long  since 
in  Kentucky  ;  and  no  press,  nor  pulpit,  nor  public  voice  in  all 
their  land  spoke  a  syllable  against  them.  This  king  does 
not  put  his  subjects  into  such  agonies  that  mothers  slay 
their  children  rather  than  expose  them  to  his  cruelty.  He 
does  not  refuse  them  the  offices  of  religion,  and  try  to  shut 
upon  them  the  door  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven  as  well  as 
the  kingdom  of  earthly  knowledge  and  happiness.  We 
do  !  Close  beside  us,  but  a  few  hundred  miles  from  out- 
doors, begins  this  valley  of  the  shadow  of  death,  this  val- 
ley of  real  death,  not  its  shadow.  There  abound  these  tears, 
and  groans,  and  agonies.  Families  are  being  torn  asunder 
this  hour.  "  They  ravish  the  women  in  Zion,  the  maids  in 
the  city  of  Judah."  They  are  on  auction-blocks  knocked 
down  to  vile  merchantmen ;  in  slave-pens,  awaiting  the  hour 
of  their  march  to  their  Southern  grave  ;  in  coffles,  hand- 
cuffed and  fettered,  walking  wearily  over  those  dreary  paths 
to  unknown  horrors.  They  are  wading  in  rice  swamps, 
sweating  in  sugar  houses,  stooping  in  cjotton  fields,  scream- 
ing under  their  father's  lash,  falling  before  their  brother's 
bullet.  How  many  a  mother,  crouching  in  her  desolated 
cabin,  is  wailing  and  moaning  with  groanings  that  cannot 
be  uttered,  as  she  thinks  to-night  of  her  tender  and  beauti- 
ful daughter,  your  sister  and  mine,  crucified  on  the  awful 
cross  of  slavery ! 

"  Gone,  gone !  sold  and  gone 

To  the  rice  swamps  dank  and  lone, 
Where  the  slave-whip  ceaseless  swings, 
Where  the  noisome  insect  stings, 
Where  the  fever-demon  strews 
Poison  with  the  fallen  dews, 
Where  the  sickly  sunbeams  glare 
Through  the  hot  and  misty  air. 
There  no  mother's  eye  is  near  them, 
There  no  mother's  ear  can  hear  them ; 
Never  when  the  torturing  lash 
Seams  their  backs  with  many  a  gash, 


ELECTION   OF   JAMES   BUCHANAN.  109 

Shall  a  mother's  kindness  bless  them, 
Or  a  mother's  arms  caress  them. 
Toiling  through  the  weary  day, 
And  at  night  the  spoiler's  prey. 
O  that  they  had  early  died, 
Sleeping  calmly  side  by  side, 
Where  the  tyrant's  power  is  o'er, 
And  the  fetter  galls  no  more. 
Gone,  gone  !  sold  and  gone 
To  the  rice  swamps  dank  and  lone, 
From  Virginia's  hills  and  waters  : 
Woe  is  me,  my  stolen  daughters !  " 

Poets  have  essayed  to  paint  the  mouth  of  hell.  Homer, 
Virgil,  Dante,  and  Milton  have  imagined  its  horrors.  Yet 
the  chief  of  them  —  the  artistic  Roman,  the  painfully  minute 
Tuscan  —  fail  to  convey,  in  their  imaginations  of  the  lost,  a 
true  picture  of  the  living  fate  of  millions  of  Americans, 
born  under  our  flag  and  on  our  soil,  heirs  with  us  to  every 
right  and  privilege  of  an  American  citizen.  Howlings  and 
writhings,  and  fiery  streams,  and  caves  of  ice,  arid  black- 
ness of  'darkness  were  the  pigments  on  their  palette.  But 
the  power  that  mingled  them  was  Sin.  Here  virtue  lies 
distressed ;  here  innocence  writhes  in  flames  ;  here  piety 
is  encased  in  thick-ribbed  walls  of  everlasting  ice  ;  here 
chastity  is  embruted  by  human  beasts  ;  here  Christ  is  cruci- 
fied afresh.  And  we,  what  have  we  done  as  a  nation,  or  as 
a  political  party  striving  to  gain  the  reins  of  government  ? 
We  dared  not  raise  a  cry  for  them,  for  fear  of  being  called 
"  abolitionists."  For  that  word  is  so  unpopular,  no  party 
assuming  it  can  rise  to  power.  We  shouted,  and  planned, 
and  fought  for  suffering  Kansas.  Her  woes  filled  our  eyes 
and  lungs.  Great  as  they  are,  they  are  nothing  to  those 
suffered  by  other  Americans  in  the  larger  part  of  the  land. 
And  these  we  feared  even  to  mention. 

We  did  not  deserve  the  victory.  We  shall  not  win  it  till 
this  sympathy  possesses  the  heart  and  bursts  from  the  lips 
of  the  people.  An  American  citizen  attempted  to  leave 


110  THE   NATIONAL   MIDNIGHT. 

Richmond  lately.  He  was  nailed  in  a  box,  and  the  box  put 
on  board  of  a  vessel  so  carelessly,  that  he  stood  upon  his 
head,  and  in  that  condition  he  went  reeling  along  the  bil- 
lowy ocean  to  New  York.  When  he  reached  that  harbor, 
half  dead,  —  thrice  dead  we  might  rather  say,  —  he  made 
himself  known  to  the  captain  ;  and  that  Northern  wretch,  a 
New  England  wretch  probably,  kindly  sent  him  back  to 
Richmond.  He  had  suffered  Peter's  fate  for  weeks,  cruci- 
fied head  downward,  and  yet  he  was  treated  with  less 
leniency.  For  had  not  death  released  the  apostle,  his  per- 
secutors might  have  had  pity  on  such  courageous  endurance 
of  so  long  and  so  horrible  a  martyrdom.  They  certainly 
would  not  have  remanded  him  to  severer  tortures.  Did  we 
make  the  skies  ring  with  our  indignation  ?  How  many 
wept  because  of  him  ?  We  talk  of  our  Congressional  and 
Kansas  heroes.  Have  they  suffered  like  this  man  for  free- 
dom ?  And  yet  he  was  honored  by  hardly  a  half  dozen  lines 
in  the  journals.  Not  a  burst  of  rage  at  the  poltroon  cap- 
tain, not  a  cry  of  pity  for  the  redeemed  brave,  hurled  back 
into  the  burning  pit  from  which  he  had  by  such  immensity 
of  endurance  well  nigh  escaped.  Indignation  meetings 
should  have  been  held  over  the  atrocity  of  that  Northern 
captain,  and  against  the  system  that  compels  such  heroism 
to  escape  from  its  tortures. 

2.  We  have  failed  because  we  were  not,  as  a  people,  ear- 
nest in  prayer  for  the  triumph  of  Freedom.  "  I  will  be 
inquired  of,"  saith  God,  "  by  the  house  of  Israel  to  do  this 
thing  for  them."  Politicians  despise  election  prayer-meet- 
ings, and  too  many  Christians  did  not  see  their  necessity. 
Though  frequently  appointed  in  this  place,  they  were  poorly 
attended.  Men  were  busy  at  the  caucus,  but  not  at  this 
true  caucus  —  the  coming  together  with  and  before  the 
Lord.  Women  would  talk  politics  over  their  tables,  but 
declined  to  come  up  to  the  temple  and  pray  it  on  their 
knees.  Voters  thought  this  to  be  just  like  other  contests, 


ELECTION   OF   JAMES  BUCHANAN.  Ill 

and  supposed  mere  party-talk  and  machinery  would  give 
them  the  victory.  Unless  the  Lord  go  up  with  us,  we  go 
in  vain  ;  we  go  to  defeat,  not  triumph.  He  will  be  sought 
unto  for  this  great  salvation.  We  should  all  have  done  as 
was  done  in  some  places.  Christians  of  all  sects  should 
have  met  together  on  the  morning  of  election,  and  marched 
from  the  prayer-meeting  to  the  ballot-box.  If  this  duty  had 
been  done  for  the  preceding  months,  we  should  have  re- 
ceived the  desired  blessing.  Christ  is  more  deeply  inter- 
ested in  this  work  than  we  can  be.  He  is  King  of  kings 
and  President  of  presidents.  To  Him  the  earth  is  given 
for  an  inheritance.  He  requires  His  children  to  call  for  His 
aid.  His  arm  alone  can  bring  us  salvation.  Had  the  whole 
land  been  one  atmosphere  of  prayerful  incense,  —  had  the 
Church  alone  been  earnest,  and  instant,  and  universal,  in 
this  cry,  —  many  a  doubting  heart  would  have  turned  right- 
ward  instead  of  wrongward ;  many  a  hand  lifted  against 
Him  would  have  been  raised  for  Him  ;  many  a  vote  that  said 
"No"  to  this  call  of  God  and  man,  would  have  said  "  Yes." 

Pennsylvania  is  not  the  keystone  of  this  nation.  It  is 
prayer.  When  we  pray  for  the  slave  as  one  with  him,  we 
shall  speak  for  him,  vote  for  him,  and  win  for  him  and  our- 
selves individual,  national,  universal  liberty.  "  I  will  be  in- 
quired of  by  the  house  of  Israel  to  do  this  thing  for  them." 

3.  We  have  failed  because  we  were,  as  a  whole,  more 
anxious  to  beat  a  party  than  to  destroy  a  gigantic  sin.  We 
have  opposed  the  President  and  his  supporters  as  politicians, 
not  as  sinners  against  a  just  and  angry  God.  We  have 
sought  their  overthrow  for  personal  and  party  aggrandize- 
ment, and  not  for  the  sake  of  God  and  man.  We  have  been 
unwilling  to  see  that  that  unfortunate  Pilate  in  the  history 
of  liberty,  enshrined  forever  in  the  execrations  of  mankind, 
was,  in  reality,  no  greater  offender  than  those  who  went  be- 
fore him.  Pierce  was  no  worse,  though  a  weaker  instrument 
of  this  sin,  than  his  predecessors,  Fillmore,  and  Webster, 


112  THE   NATIONAL   MIDNIGHT. 

and  Clay.  Those  who  voted  for  him  were  no  worse  than 
the  most  of  those  who  voted  for  his  rival.  All  avowed  their 
joy  that  agitation  on  this  subject  had  ceased,  shutting  the 
hatchway  on  our  miserable  brethren  and  sisters  in  the  hold 
of  our  Ship  of  State,  and  stifling  their  shrieks  and  moans, 
while  she  sails  over  sunny  waters  of  credit  and  renown. 

We  are  all  partakers  of  our  Pilate's  crime.  The  innocent 
blood  he  has  shed  is  on  us  and  our  children.  It  will  be  de- 
manded of  us,  drop  for  drop,  by  the  God  of  justice.*  We 
must  look  behind  that  poor  man  to  the  Judases  and  Caia- 
phases  who,  for  money  and  power,  have  set  on  this  weak- 
willed  governor  to  his  dreadful  deeds  and  fame.  We  must 
go  behind  even  these  traitors  and  enemies  of  our  liberties 
and  our  God,  to  the  arch  Sin  which  possesses  them  like  the 
Legion,  the  wanderer  in  the  tombs,  the  greatest  of  modern, 
nay,  greater  than  any  ancient  crime  —  American  Slavery. 

It  is  a  system  the  smoke  of  whose  torment  blackens  all 
our  sky.  No  such  organized  iniquity  exists  elsewhere  on 
the  earth.  If  it  prevailed  in  China  precisely  as  it  does 
in  Virginia,  we  should  vent  our  loudest  thunders  against  it. 
If  it  possessed  a  European  foothold,  it  would  be  expelled 
by  the  united  cannon  of  all  nations.  Ezekiel's  denuncia- 
tions of  the  Judean  infamy,  in  all  its  minute  and  horrible 
fullness,  does  not  express  the  full  deserts  of  this  abomina- 
tion. See  all  the  present  population  of  New  England  in  the 
condition  of  our  kinsfolk  of  the  South ;  their  number  is  about 
our  number.  Go  from  city  to  city,  from  village  to  village, 
and  behold  only  the  worst  of  huts,  the  most  meager  fare, 
the  raggedest  dress.  Note  their  condition.  Not  one  al- 
lowed to  read  ;  not  one  permitted  to  go  from  his  allotted 
place  ;  no  Westfield  man  visiting  Springfield,  nor  Spring- 
field man,  Boston.  No  one  riding  on  the  railroads,  except 
in  the  cattle  cars,  and  in  chains  ;  sold  on  your  and  every 
village  green  ;  driven  through  every  street  as  beasts  for  the 

*  See  Note  IV. 


ELECTION   OF   JAMES   BUCHANAN.  113 

slaughter,  only  that  cattle  go  freely  in  their  droves  ;  these 
go  lashed  together,  the  sound  of  the  whip  ever  falling  on 
their  quivering  flesh  ;  the  sound  of  agony  ever  rising  on  the 
weary  air  ;  and  below,  beyond  all  this,  crimes  against  God 
and  nature,  which  defiled  Sodom,  and  buried  it  in  wrath 
and  fire,  everywhere  occurring.  Traverse  all  these  Puritan 
States,  and  gaze  on  this  universal  horror,  with  not  a  single 
exception,  and  say,  Is  there  any  sin  like  ours  ?  That  is  the 
sight  which  spreads  over  our  land  for  a  thousand  miles.  Is 
it  not  strange  that  God's  thunders  still  sleep  in  His  arrn  ?  that 
the  earth  does  not  gape,  and  the  heavens  break  forth  in  fire  ? 

We  should  demand  that  these  horrors  shall  cease,  or  that 
we  should  throw  off  the  body  of  this  death  that  makes  the 
United  States  a  stench  in  the  nostrils  of  the  world,  a  by- 
word and  hissing  among  the  nations. 

A  dislike  of  this  evil,  joined  with  unwillingness  to  extir- 
pate it,  is  a  characteristic  of  no  especial  party.  The  Demo- 
cratic party,  now  in  power,  is  as  much  opposed  to  slavery, 
so  far  as  most  of  its  Northern  elements  are  concerned,  as 
the  party  that  opposes  it.  The  foreign  and  native  elements 
of  its  Northern  wing  have  no  desire  to  see  slavery  estab- 
lished in  Kansas,  extended  into  our  Territories,  or  spread 
over  our  whole  land.  The  President-  elect,  and  ruling,  are 
undoubtedly,  in  their  private  sentiments,  opposed  to  its 
extension.  The  fault  is  not  in  their  private,  abstract  feel- 
ings ;  it  is  in  their  attachment  to  a  party,  because  they  see 
in  it  the  road  to  political  success.  Unprincipled  men,  trad- 
ing politicians,  are  the  Northern  leaders  of  this  party,  whose 
conscience  and  heart,  if  they  have  any,  never  interfere  with 
their  plans  or  deeds.  Their  followers  are  believers  in  its 
original  creed,  who  fought  its  battles  in  the  days  when  it 
defended  the  cause  of  the  people,  Avhen  the  greatest  good  of 
the  greatest  number  was  its  motto  and  endeavor,  and  who 
cannot  yet  believe  that  it  is  in  the  hands  of  the  most  haughty 
and  wicked  aristocracy  on  the  face  of  the  earth.  They  still 


114  THE   NATIONAL    MIDNIGHT. 

think  its  enemies  are  their  ancient  foes,  whom  they  esteemed 
the  enemies  of  the  people  and  of  the  rights  of  man. 

The  leaders  know  for  whom  they  are  working.  The  slave- 
traders,  who  have  stolen  this  Democratic  livery  of  a  popu- 
lar name  and  popular  rights,  to  serve  the  devil  in,  have 
put  the  mercenaries  of  the  North  into  office  in  order  that 
they  may  keep  the  masses  on  their  side,  and  thus  retain 
the  national  power.  We  have  not,  as  a  party,  sought  so 
much  to  convince  these  Democratic  voters  as  to  subdue 
them.  This  party  management  of  ours  has  retained  them 
in  the  hands  of  the  enemy.  In  Pennsylvania  alone  multi- 
tudes were  thus  kept  from  our  ranks.  It  is  not  natural  to 
submit  to  the  man  that  smites  you.  We  may  christianly 
turn  the  other  cheek,  —  we  are  not  christianly  required  to 
make  him  our  companion  and  guide.  Not  until  we  rise 
above  the  passion  for  party  success  or  the  vindictive  assaults 
on  men  for  mere  partisanship,  shall  we  win  this  great  vic- 
tory for  God. 

These  are  the  chief  reasons  for  our  failure :  bitterness  of 
party  feeling  and  ambition  for  party  triumph,  lack  of  sym- 
pathy, deep  and  all-pervading,  for  the  slave,  dread  of  the 
reproach  of  Christ  and  of  abolitionism,  and  neglect  of  prayer 
to  God,  that  His  right  arm  might  give  us  the  victory. 

IV.  Is  there  any  bow  upon  these  clouds  ?  Have  we  any 
ground  for  hope  in  the  ultimate  triumph  of  Freedom,  in  the 
restoration  of  the  Declaration  and  the  Constitution  to  their 
true  seat  of  power  ?  Is  the  roll  filled  only  with  lamenta- 
tions, mourning,  and  woe.  Written  it  is  within  and  without 
with  these  doleful  exclamations.  The  hosts  of  Pharaoh  have 
not  yet  sunk  like  lead  in  the  mighty  waters  of  a  popular  up- 
rising. The  chain  yet  clanks  about  the  neck  of  the  nation. 
Our  bondage  is  to  be  yet  more  grievous.  But  will  it  come 
to  an  end  ?  I  can  prophesy  good  concerning  Israel.  There 
is  ground  for  hope.  "  I  shall  see  Him,  but  not  now.  I  shall 
behold  Him,  but  not  nigh."  It  is  the  hour  and  the  triumph 


ELECTION   OF   JAMES   BUCHANAN.  115 

of  darkness.  Satan  conquers  in  Eden  and  on  Calvary.  Yet 
Christ  hath  bruised  his  head,  and  will  lead  him  captive  even 
in  the  hour  of  his  victory.  Not  without  great  toil  and  suf- 
fering- and  defeat  and  death  will  this  deliverance  come. 

Two  questions  address  us.  Will  the  programme  already 
prepared  be  carried  out  ?  Will  the  defeated  principles  be 
inthroned  by  the  next  quadrennial  in  the  seat  of  national 
power?  1.  We  answer,  In  the  prevention  of  the  execution 
of  the  dreadful  catalogue  of  aggressions  on  the  nation's 
liberty  and  life,  we  have  no  hope  from  the  managers  of  the 
dominant  party.  Undoubtedly  its  Northern  leaders  are  ter- 
rified at  the  mighty  expression  of  Free  State  sentiment ;  but 
they  are  not  the  leaders  of  the  party ;  they  are  but  the  tools 
of  the  slave-drivers,  whose  slaves,  sooner  than  these  men, 
will  rebel  against  them.  We  have  nothing  to  hope  from  a 
President  who  has  been  for  thirty  years  the  foremost  wor- 
shiper at  this  Baal ;  who  has  advocated  all  their  measures 
with  a  readiness  of  zeal  that  surpassed  even  John  C.  Cal- 
houn  himself;  who  alone,  of  all  Northern  senators,  urged 
the  enactment  of  a  law,  making  the  postmaster  responsible, 
under  heavy  fines,  for  the  passage  through  his  office  of  any 
document  condemning  slavery  ;  who  alone,  of  all  Northern 
men,  advocated  the  annexation  of  Texas,  on  the  ground  that 
the  South  ought  to  have  more  slave  territory  ;  who  wrote 
in  favor  of  extending  the  Missouri  line  to  the  Pacific,  when 
this  tyranny  demanded  it,  in  order  to  secure  to  themselves, 
without  fail,  New  Mexico,  Arizona,  and  all  Southern  Cali- 
fornia ;  who  dared  to  do  what  Mr.  Pierce,  with  all  his  subser- 
vience, and  Mr.  Douglas,  with  all  his  boldness,  would  have 
shrunk  from,  and  in  the  center  of  Europe,  and  under  the  eyes 
of  all  Christian  powers,  draughted  and  published  with  his 
name  first,  and  two  slave-drivers  after  him,  a  plan  for  America 
to  steal  a  province  from  a  nation  with  whom  we  are  at  peace, 
unless  she  will  consent  to  its  sale,  in  order  that  the  area  of  this 
crime  may  be  extended,  and  its  power  made  more  secure. 


116  THE    NATIONAL   MIDNIGHT. 

What  should  we  say  if  Great  Britain  should  threaten  to 
take  Massachusetts  unless  the  Kepublic  sold  it  to  her;  stolen 
with  all  its  wealth,  its  history,  its  patriotism,  its  every  ma- 
terial and  spiritual  bond  of  union,  stolen  to  make  it  a  bond- 
slave of  her 'own,  that  her  favorite  iniquity  might  be  the 
more  firmly  planted  and  widely  extended.  But  this  did 
James  Buchanan  on  the  continent  of  Europe,  when  he  as- 
serted the  purpose  of  the  Slave  Power  to  seize  Cuba,  unless 
Spain  surrendered  it.  Such  is  his  past  career.  Can  any 
change  for  the  better  be  augured  therefrom  ?  Is  there  any  hope 
for  the  amelioration  of  this  evil  drawn  from  his  character  or 
history  ?  Alas,  none.!  While  as  a  minister  of  Christ  I  shall 
pray  for  our  new  President,  while  I  shall  not  shut  the  door 
against  his  penitence  and  return,  in  the  fear  of  God,  before 
whom  princes  are  but  men,  and  who  commands  His  servants 
not  to  fear  or  favor  the  face  of  unrighteous  rulers,  I  sol- 
emnly declare  that  we  have  no  right  to,  hope  for  any  act, 
favorable  to  liberty  from  Mr.  Buchanan.  The  dying  dynasty 
will  be  forgotten,  I  fear,  in  the  subtle,  cruel,  tireless  crimi- 
nality of  the  coming  administration.  The  last  woe  is  nearly 
past ;  the  next  cometh  quickly,  and  cometh  sure.  The  bow, 
if  it  is  one,  is  of  the  clouds,  is  not  on  them.  The  Judicial 
Bench  is  the  servile  oracle  of  this  Power.  The  Senate  will 
be  no  less  vindictive  than  it  has  been  against  freedom, 
and  no  less  supple  to  slavery.  It  cannot  be  more  so.  The 
House  may  stand  against  the  waves  of  this  gulf  of  death. 
It  may.  God  grant  that  it  will.  Here  is  our  only  hope, 
so  far  as  our  national  action  is  concerned,  for  the  success 
of  freedom,  or  rather  for  the  prevention  of  further  suc- 
cesses of  slavery.  You  know  how  feeble  it  is.  Men  who 
turned  a  deaf  ear  to  the  wail  of  Kansas,  who  have  joined 
loudest  in  insults  upon  the  advocates  of  liberty,  who  have 
worked  zealously  for  what  they  knew  was  the  cause  of  sin, 
will  not  be  apt  to  stand  up  against  their  leaders.  Their 
backs  are  stiffened  to  the  stooping  posture  in  which  they 


ELECTION   OF   JAMES   BUCHANAN.  117 

have  so  long*  been  bent.  They  have  no  power  to  walk  erect. 
Such  men  as  John  P.  Hale  and  Hannibal  Hamlin  have  not 
taken  seats  in  the  House  as  they  have  in  the  Senate  ;  nor 
can  we  hope,  unless  the  people  shall  change  their  mind,  and 
then  their  representatives,  that  its  immediate  future  will 
differ  from  its  past.  A  body  which  voted  not  to  arraign  the 
murderer  of  Keating,  because  its  Southern  masters  forbade  it ; 
which  voted  not  to  expel  the  murderer  in  intent,  and  probably 
yet  in  fact,  of  Charles  Sumner ;  which  voted  that  the  Border 
Ruffian  sitting  among  them,  by  votes  which  he  and  they 
confessed  were  fraudulent,  should  still  hold  his  seat ;  which 
voted  against  any  search  into  the  Kansas  troubles,  and  after 
it  had  received  the  report,  and  knew  of  its  truthfulness, 
voted  not  to  believe  it ;  which  fought  for  weeks  to  give  the 
President  the  forces  he  is  now  employing  to  rob  and  murder 
peaceable  citizens  of  their  own  districts  in  their  new  home,  — 
these  are  not  the  men  to  go  backward,  and  confess  and  for- 
sake their  sins,  and  do  works  meet  for  repentance.  They 
will  grow  more  desperate  against  the  light  and  summons 
of  the  hour,  and  strive  yet  more  fiercely  to  strangle  the 
babe  divine  in  its  growing  grace  and  greatness. 

We  turn  away  with  hopeless  heart  from  the  national  gov- 
ernment. As  well  expect  to  find  Judas  returned  to  the 
apostleship,  and  outstripping  Paul  and  Peter  in  his  devotion 
to  Christ,  as  well  dream  that  Arnold  would  again  become 
the  companion  of  Washington,  that  Francis  of  Austria  will 
make  Kossuth  his  prime  minister,  as  that  the  slave  party 
shall  act  with  the  disciples  of  Christ,  the  followers  of  Wash- 
ington, and  of  Kossuth  in  abolishing  this  wrong.* 

As  we  turn  sadly  away,  we  rejoice  to  see  two  government- 
al barriers  to  this  baleful  progress,  foreign  and  domestic. 
The  powers  of  Europe  will  forbid  the  annexation  of  Cuba 

*  The  House  was  better  than  these  fears.  The  next  year,  on  the  one 
hundred  and  thirty-third  ballot,  by  a  plurality  of  three,  but  four  less 
than  a  majority,  Mr.  Banks  was  chosen  Speaker.  The  "  American  " 
vote  and  a  year's  discussion  contributed  this  victory. 


118  THE  NATIONAL  MIDNIGHT. 

and  Central  America,  the  powers  of  the  Free  States  the 
annexation  of  Kansas  to  the  South.  All  these  States,  with 
one  exception,  have  governments  favorable  to  freedom,  and 
by  ways  sagacity,  prudence,  and  firmness  will  devise  and 
execute,  will,  we  trust,  keep  Kansas  unsubdued.  By  grants 
of  money  to  those  citizens  settling  there,  and  by  other 
equally  legal  and  potent  methods,  they  will,  we  believe, 
maintain  our  rights  and  her  liberty,  though  all  the  powers 
of  the  national  army,  purse,  and  judicial  subtlety,  shall  be 
employed  for  her  destruction. 

The  fear  of  foreign  invasion,  which  shall  set  their  cap- 
tives free,  may  keep  these  Southern  pirates  peaceable  on 
the  high  seas,  and  confine  their  slave  trade  to  our  own 
afflicted  citizens  and  our  own  degraded  coast.  The  united 
front  of  Northern  administrations  may  stay  its  progress  on 
the  land,  and  compel  it  to  confine  its  ravages  to  the  lines 
that  already  inclose  it,  and  over  which,  like  fires  girdled  by 
bounds  which  they  seek  to  pass,  it  shoots  its  tongues  of 
flame,  and  leaps,  in  mad  desire  and  endeavor,  to  lay  waste 
the  whole  national  heritage,  and  whelm  State  and  Territory, 
old  and  new,  east  and  west,  north  and  south,  in  one  com- 
mon ruin.  Only  these  powers  can  prevent  the  accomplish- 
ment of  its  designs.  We  shall  soon  see  whether  even  they 
are  able  to  resist  its  progress. 

2.  Looking  away  from  the  material  relief  which  we  so  mucli 
need  and  desire,  but  which  is  so  little  to  be  expected,  let  us 
see  if  there  are  any  good  hopes  of  the  overthrow  of  this 
Power  after  the  coming  calamities  shall  have  overpassed. 
Here  we  have  glimpses  of  light.  Thanks  be  unto  God  who 
giveth  us  the  victory  through  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  The 
morning  cometh,  though  also,  and  previously,  the  night. 

Our  hopes  are  based  on  these  foundations  :  — 

(1.)  This  is  the  first  time  in  our  national  history  that  the 
cause  of  Anti-Slavery  has  prevailed,  openly  and  avowedly, 
in  a  single  State.  Other  issues  have  been  foremost,  and 


ELECTION   OF   JAMES   BUCHANAN.  119 

this  put  at  the  end  of  the  resolutions  and  the  party.  An 
Anti-slavery  political  organization  has  long-  been  formed, 
and  is  the  real  seed  of  the  present  harvest.  But  never  till 
this  election  did  it  carry  a  single  State.  Now  the  last 
is  made  first.  Though  its  demands  are  the  least  of  the 
claims  and  duties  of  Abolitionists,  —  the  sharp  edge  of  the 
wedge,  —  yet  it  is  an  edge.  More  than  a  million  of  the 
citizens  of  this  nation  have  declared  their  hostility  to  this 
sin,  and  their  determination  to  resist  its  progress.  They 
cannot  stop  here.  While  faithfully  abiding  by  their  doc- 
trine of  the  independence  of  the  States  in  their  own  juris- 
diction, they  must  say  an  evil  which  cannot  go  over  the 
continent  cannot  abide  under  the  national  flag.  Washing- 
ton must  be  free.  The  national  piracy  on  the  high  seas 
from  Virginia  and  Charleston  to  the  Mississippi  and  the 
Gulf,  must  be  stopped,  and  the  government  be  put  openly 
and  entirely  on  the  side  of  Freedom.  This  party,  being  in 
its  beginning  right,  will  in  the  end  be  successful. 

(2.)  Again,  this  vote  for  freedom  will  stimulate  those  who 
dwell  in  the  midst  of  slavery  to  shake  off  the  terrors  that 
have  kept  them  dumb.  Said  Governor  Wise,  one  of  the 
leaders  of  this  host  of  fallen  spirits,  ''•What  we  have  most 
to  fear  is  an  insurrection  of  our  white  citizens."  The  vote 
for  Mr.  Fillmore  is  almost  entirely  a  vote  against  the  exten- 
sion of  slavery.  They  dared  not  put  their  desires  in  its 
true  form  ;  but  by  voting  against  the  candidate  of  the 
secessionists  and  slavocrats,  they  voted  for  the  cause  of 
Freedom.  This  large  party  at  the  South  has  carried  one 
State,  and  perhaps  more,  and  has  prevented  all  the  rest 
from  going  by  large  majorities  for  slavery  propagandism. 
It  will  dare  to  speak  more  freely  under  the  countenance  of 
such  a  Northern  vote  for  liberty.  Had  we  been  successful, 
every  Southern  State,  with  perhaps  one  exception,  would 
have  wheeled  into  line  within  four  years.  As  it  is,  their 
day  of  deliverance,  though  delayed,  draweth  nigh.  What 


120  THE   NATIONAL   MIDNIGHT. 

they  have  wanted  was  the  erection  of  a  free  spirit  here,  -1- 
sober,  guarded,  conservative,  but  earnest  and  mighty. 
Having  these,  we  shall  see  in  those  regions  light  springing 
up.  Western  Virginia,  Kentucky,  Missouri, — who  has  sent 
one  Representative  to  Congress,  —  Maryland, — who  has  one 
there  now,*  —  Louisiana,  North  Carolina,  Tennessee, — in  all 
these  the  tree  of  Liberty  will  again  put  forth  its  leaves,  and 
be  pouring,  we  trust;  its  ripened  fruit  into  the  successful 
harvest  of  Freedom  in  1861.f 

(3.)  Lastly  and  chiefly,  we  hope  for  success  because  of  the 
religious  sentiment  that  has  been  developed.  Never  has  a 
great  party,  since  the  dawning  of  the  revolution,  had  so 
much  of  the  life  and  power  of  religion  flowing  through  its 
veins.  A  hearty  sympathy  with  our  suffering  kindred  in 
Kansas,  a  patriotic  devotion  to  our  ancient  and  imperiled 
liberties,  an  earnest  calling  upon  God  that  He  would  come 
and  save  us,  —  these  have  been  the  great  elements  of  its 
being.  Never  has  the  conscience  of  this  nation  been  so 
aroused  ;  never  its  dependence  upon  God  so  tested.  That 
feeling  is  not  sufficiently  deep  yet.  The  horrors  of  the 
coming  years,  whose  gloomy  clouds  cover  all  the  land,  and 
drop  their  rain  of  misery  and  death  upon  its  political  and 
geographical  centers,  Washington  and  Kansas,  —  these  suf- 
ferings and  sins  will  make  our  cry  go  up  yet  more  earnestly 
unto  God,  and  He  will  hear  and  answer. 

It  is  this  character  in  these  issues  that  has  brought  the 
Church  and  the  ministry  so  actively  into  the  canvass.  They 
have  not  gone  out  of  their  way.  The  political  march  of 
events  and  duties  has  come  upon  their  way.  For  years 

*  Henry  Winter  Davis,  one  of  the  truest  friends  of  Freedom  the 
country  ever  possessed. 

t  Though  the  Southern  allies  failed  to  rally,  except  in  Western  Vir- 
ginia, as  soon  as  is  here  suggested,  they  were  the  loyal  element,  that  did 
us  good  service  in  many  parts  of  the  South,  and  are  now  the  associates 
of  their  emancipated  brethren  in  securing  that  land  to  righteousness. 


ELECTION   OF   JAMES   BUCHANAN.  121 

have  they  striven  with  this  sin  in  their  churches,  often  too 
feebly,  always  too  unsuccessfully.  They  have  not  engaged 
in  it  in  order  to  make  the  Church,  as  such,  the  head  or  con- 
troller of  the  State.  Not  till  the  millennial  dawn,  when  the 
Church  and  the  State  shall  both  be  perfect,  and  become  one, 
will  that  position  be  assigned  to  her.  They  have  not  mar- 
shaled their  forces  as  the  Papist  bishops  have  theirs,  and 
ordered  them  to  .vote  so  that  their  church  organization  shall 
be  recognized  as  one  of  the  ruling  powers,  and  shall  be 
represented,  as  such,  in  the  offices  of  the  nation, — which 
act,  united  with  the  marshaling  of  white  serfs,  gave  the 
Slave  Power  the  victory.  Papal  priest  and  slaveholding 
tyrant  have  entered  into  power  as  one  force.  It  only  needs, 
what  it  has  in  heart  and  voice,  and,  as  far  as  possible,  in 
vote,  the  Mormon  abomination,  to  complete  its  organization. 

"  Devil  with  devil  damned  firm  concord  holds." 

The  true  Church  of  Jesus  Christ  has  engaged  in  this  duty 
as  Christians.  They  have  voted  as  they  prayed,  and  prayed 
as  they  voted  —  for  Christ  and  Caesar  ;  not  for  Caesar  only  ; 
for  eternal  as  well  as  for  temporal  good  ;  for  man  rather 
than  for  his  transient  accidents.  The  entire  North,  though 
not  all,  and  actually  but  a  small  part  Christian,  has  been 
moved  by  the  Spirit  of  God. 

This  is  our  surest  confidence  that  darkness  and  chaos  will 
soon  disappear,  and  light  and  liberty,  in  the  beautiful  order 
of  heaven,  be  our  heritage  forever. 

Thus  stands  our  cause.  The  bow  glitters  in  the  heavens. 
Though  the  waters  yet  cover  the  earth, — though  the  waves 
roar  with  the  swelling  thereof, — though  winds  howl,  and 
clouds  press  close  and  heavy,  and  thunders  crash,  and  light- 
nings slay,  —  still  there  gleams  the  bow.  Before  us  rises 
tli<-  pillar  of  fire.  We  must  follow  it.  We  may  die  in  the 
wilderness,  die  without  the  sight  of  the  promised  land ;  yet 
tlr.it  fiery  guide  will  lead  this  enslaved  nation,  with  those  in 


122  THE   NATIONAL   MIDNIGHT. 

her  deepest  dungeons  of  bondage,  —  all  of  us,  black  and 
white,  North  and  South,  —  into  the  land  of  holy  liberty. 

"  Oppression  shall  not  always  reign  : 

There  comes  a  brighter  day, 
When  Freedom,  burst  from  every  chain, 
Shall  have  triumphant  sway." 

Let  us  not  grow  weary  in  our  toils  and  prayers.  Scoff 
as  the  wicked  may,  the  effectual,  fervent  prayer  of  the  right- 
eous in  this  great  war  has  availed  much.  It  will,  if  con- 
tinued, in  God's  good  time, —  and  that  seems  not  far  off, — 
give  us  the  glorious  victory.  Let  us  refresh  our  sympa- 
thies with  the  agonies  of  our  brethren  and  sisters  in  slave 
hut  and  prairie  cabin.  May  God  quicken  the  consciences 
of  our  rulers,  so  that  they  may  fear  Him  and  work  right- 
eousness. May  He  distract  the  counsels  of  the  wicked,  and 
break  their  bows  asunder.  May  you  all  seek  the  power  of 
a  Christian  faith  and  a  godly  life,  that  you  may  join  your 
prayers  to  those  that  are  going  up  to  the  throne  of  God  for 
the  salvation  of  this  nation.  Without  this,  your  labors  are 
but  half  perfect ;  with  it,  they  will  have  the  symmetry  and 
strength  of  angelic  works.  For  Christ  labor ;  to  Christ 
pray ;  and  He  will  prosper  His  servants,  and  spread  His 
millennial  glory  over  all  this  land.  The  cruel  and  deceitful 
men  that  now  govern  us  shall  be  driven  into  obscurity ;  the 
weak  and  fearful  shall  be  made  strong  ;  the  slave  arise  to  his 
true  estate  of  civil  and  social  manhood ;  the  lover  of  liberty 
abroad  gather  new  inspiration  from  our  victories  ;  and  the 
whole  world  be  filled  with  our  praises  and  our  power. 

"  Down  shall  the  shrines  of  Moloch  sink, 

And  leave  no  traces  where  they  stood ; 
No  longer  shall  its  idol  drink 

His  daily  cup  of  human  blood ; 
Another  altar  standeth  there, 

To  truth,  and  love,  and  mercy  given ; 
And  Freedom's  gift  and  Freedom's  prayer 

Shall  call  all  blessings  down  from  heaven." 


CASTE   THE 


"  WE    ARE    VERILY    GUILTY    CONCERNING    OUR    BROTHER." 

Genesis  xlii.  21. 

E  shall  not  dwell  especially  to-day  on  the  crime 
that  still  possesses  our  land,  after  the  usual  man- 
ner of  its  consideration.  Let  us  turn  from  the 
dreadful  fruit  as  it  ripens  in  that  heavy  Southern 
air,  and  examine  its  seed-grain  that  is  growing  profusely  in 
every  heart.  The  corner-stone  of  this  system  is  prejudice 
against  color.  Upon  this  almost  universal  feeling  the  slave- 
holder builds  an  impregnable  fortress.  Slavery  will  never 
be  abolished  until  it  gives  way.  As  one  that  must  render 
an  account  to  God  for  what  I  say,  I  shall  speak.  As  those 
that  must  give  like  account  before  the  same  God,  I  beseech 
you,  take  heed  how  you  hear.  Though  I  assail  a  deep-rooted 
but  God-forbidden  sentiment,  as  you  would  obey  the  command 
of  Christ,  "  Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbor  as  thyself,"  I 


*  A  sermon  preached  on  the  occasion  of  the  State  Fast,  at  Wil- 
braham,  Mass.,  in  1854,  and  at  Roxbury,  Mass.,  in  1858.  It  was  also 
delivered  at  the  Forsyth  Street  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  New 
York. 

(123) 


124  .       CASTE   THE    CORNER-STONE 

entreat  you  to  give  the  subject  your  candid  and  Christian 
attention. 

I.  Upon  what  is  slavery  grounded  ?  Is  it  upon  the  right 
to  hold  in  slavery  the  black  man,  or  the  man  who  has  any 
blood  relation,  however  remote,  with  that  portion  of  the  sons 
of  men  ?  The  most  arrogant  defender  of  slavery  in  this 
country  has  never  dared  to  advocate  the  enslavement  of  any 
race  of  colored  men,  for  all  men  are  colored.  The  lighter, 
though  sometimes  very  dusky,  shades  of  the  Caucasian,  the 
yellow  Chinese,  the  tawny  Malay,  the  copper-hued  Indian,  are 
all  painted  by  the  hand  of  their  Creator  another  color  than 
white.  No  doctor  of  diabolic  divinity  has  ever  picked  from 
the  sacred  page  any  text  for  the  enslavement  of  Indian,  Mexi- 
can, Englishman,  or  Greek,  though  every  argument  which 
they  wrest  from  the  writings  of  Paul  (as  did  those  of  old  for 
their  own  destruction  and  the  destruction  of  the  brethren  of 
Christ)  must,  on  their  principle,  be  applied  chiefly  to  white 
persons,  as  these  were  almost  the  only  slaves  of  Rome  in  the 
days  of  Paul.  One  text  alone,  in  the  whole  Bible,  can  they 
bring  to  the  support  of  African  slavery.  Every  other  reference 
to  it  is  human,  not  specific  —  the  slavery  of  Man,  not  Ham. 
And  even  that  text  supports  no  such  theory.  It  was  a 
prophecy  announced  and  completed  four  thousand  years  ago, 
when  Joshua  made  the  Gideonites  his  servants,  and  David 
ruled  over  the  whole  land  of  Canaan.*  A  broader  view  of  the 
history  of  these  three  families  only  confirms  this  position. 
The  sons  of  Canaan  ruled  in  Nineveh,  and  were  the  first 
conquerors  of  the  world.  They  became  subject  to  the  pos- 
terity of  Shorn,  under  Cyrus,  and  Shem  had  to  allow  Japhet, 
under  Alexander,  to  abide  in  his  tents.  To-day,  Shem,  in 
the  person  of  the  Turk,  holds  Canaan  in  bondage  in  Syria 
and  Egypt,  and  Japhet,  in  that  of  Russia  and  England, 
dwells  in  many  of  the  tents  of  Shem. 

Scripture  is  stolen  to  deck  a  false  idol.     It  is  a  new  argu- 

*  See  Note  V. 


OF   AMERICAN    SLAVERY.  125 

ment  for  an  old  sin,  an  argument  without  any  antitype  in 
history,  or  any  authority  in  the  Word  of  God.  Abraham, 
they  say,  was  a  slaveholder ;  but  the  sons  of  Shem  were 
his  slaves.  Egyptians  and  Babylonians  enslaved  Hebrews, 
Hebrews  enslaved  the  Canaanites,  not  for  reasons  of  race, 
but  for  the  sole  reason  of  power.  The  Persian  owned  the 
Greek  ;  the  Greek,  the  Roman  ;  the  Roman,  the  Norman ; 
the  Norman,  the  Saxon.  No  one  of. them  regarded  color, 
but  condition  only.  The  last  of  these  slaves,  the  Saxon, 
having  gained  his  liberty,  and  following  the  devil's  maxim, 
"  Do  to  others  as  you  do  not  wish  should  be  done  to  you," 
goes  out  and  binds  his  fellow-servants.  He  is  an  adventurer, 
and  when  he  conquers,  enslaves.  He  steals  men  and  women 
from  Africa,  and  sells  them  in  America.  Here  he  enslaves 
every  new-born  child  of  the  daughters  of  these  captives  in 
every  following  generation.  For  two  hundred  years  he 
pursues  this  traffic,  and  when  the  conscience  of  the  world 
begins  to  rise  up  against  his  iniquity,  behold,  he  clothes  him- 
self with  these  fig  leaves  of  prophecy,  which  he  gets  pro- 
fessed ministers  of  Christ  to  sew  together,  and  hopes  to 
perpetuate  his  sin  and  shame  with  a  pretension  that  blas- 
phemes God  and  empties  His  Word  of  its  sovereign  power. 
For  if  that  Word  could  be  proved  to  indorse  this  crime, 
its  sanctity  and  authority  flee  instantly  and  forever. 

No  other  modern  race  but  the  Saxon  makes  this  preten- 
sion. Spanish,  French,  Russ,  Turk,  all  but  the  English, 
claim  no  Scripture  text  for  their  protection.  Nor  can  all 
the  last  people  be  charged  with  this  folly.  It  is  the  child 
of  the  American  Saxon,  not  of  the  British.  It  was  born  on 
our  soil,  of  our  lusts,  of  which  it  is  the  meanest  offspring. 

Away  with  all  such  mockery  of  God  and  his  Gospel. 
Stand  forth,  transgressor,  in  thy  own  vileness.  "  Lie 
down  in  thy  shame,  and  let  thy  sins  cover  thee."  Pretend 
not  to  shelter  thyself  in  the  Word  of  God.  It  burns  with 
intolerable  flame  against  all  such  hypocrisy.  No  one  ever 


126  CASTE   THE   CORNER-STONE 

before  made  such  a  cowardly  excuse  for  his  indulgence  in 
avarice,  power,  and  lust.  No  sinner  in  all  the  Bible  ever 
arrayed  his  wicked  passions  in  such  a  cloak  of  holiness.  It 
was  left  for  preachers  and  professors  of  the  Gospel  in  this 
free  and  Christian  America,  in  this  nineteenth  century  after 
the  coming*  of  Christ,  to  weave  such  a  garment  of  sanctity 
for  the  body  of  their  death.  How  will  He  whom  they  thus 
mock,  put  them  to  open  shame  for  this  profanity  of  His  name 
and  claims.  Better  defy  Him  in  word,  as  they  do  in  act, 
than  to  thus  proclaim. that  in  their  most  godless  deeds  they 
are  especially  observing  His  most  godly  law. 

Thus  was  it  left  for  Satan,  in  his  last  resort,  to  transform 
himself  into  an  angel  of  light,  and  enter  this  Paradise, 
which  the  Bible  and  Christian  institutions  were  making  the 
garden  of  the  Lord,  and  by  the  deft  handling  of  the  Word 
of  God,  seduce  His  Church  to  her  ruin.  As  he  showed  his 
skill  in  selecting  apt  texts  of  Scripture  with  which  to  assail 
our  Lord  and  Savior,  so  has  he  tempted  His  disciples — alas  ! 
in  their  case,  with  a  too  baleful  success. 

II.  But  another  root  this  iniquity  puts  forth.  It  is  claimed 
that  this  mark  of  color  is  a  badge  of  separation  and  of 
degradation ;  that,  because  they  are  black,  they  are  without 
equal  rights,  and  cannot  mingle  indissolubly  with  the  rest 
of  mankind.  Their  white  neighbors  shrink  from  them  with 
horror.  A  leper  is  not  so  offensive. 

This  sin  of  caste  prevails  here  as  much  as  where  it  has 
borne  its  legitimate  fruit  —  the  transforming  of  this  sep- 
arated, darker,  and  inferior  class  into  the  property  of  the 
lighter  and  superior. 

To  its  consideration  we  of  the  North  are  especially  called. 
It  is  a  sin  at  our  own  doors,  in  our  own  hearts.  It  makes 
us  naked  before  our  enemies.  It  ties  our  tongues  before 
their  taunts.  It  must  be  extirpated  ere  God  gives  us  per- 
fect arid  perpetual  peace.  It  is  the  most  general,  deep- 
rooted,  unnatural,  and  destructive  of  all  the  sins  of  the  nation. 


OF  AMERICAN  SLAVERY.  127 

1.  Its  universality  none  can  doubt.     The  familiarity  of 
the   South,  the   philanthropy  of  the  North,  have  not   yet 
weakened  this  feeling.     Now  and  then  a  Richard  M.  Johnson 
publicly  avows  his  tinged  companion  to  be  his  wife.     Here 
and  there,  in  the  North,  equally  fervent  loves  are  legally 
consummated.     But  these  are  solitary  stars  in  the  midnight 
clouds  of  this  superstition.     "  Darkness  is  over  all  the  land." 

2.  It  is  the  most  deep-rooted.     I  could  not  have  men- 
tioned a  subject  that  would  have  excited  such  instant  and 
profound  loathing  as  this.    I  rejoice  that  you  have  so  patient- 
ly listened  to  its  uncongenial  truths.     I  believe  that  it  is  be- 
cause reason  commands  you,  though  your  feelings  yet  refuse 
obedience.     Let  reason  have  her  perfect  work,  and  see'  if 
she  cannot  subdue  this  feeling  to  herself,  and  convert  it  to 
the  perfect  truth. 

The  presence  of  a  drop  of  this  blood  excludes  its  pos- 
sessor from  all  white  society,  North  or  South.  But  a  few 
years  since,  a  wealthy  man  in  New  Orleans,  in  a  heated  con- 
versation, was  charged  with  having  a  colored  ancestor,  a 
free  black,  some  four  or  five  generations  before.  The  blood 
of  his  antagonist  was  not  sufficient  recompense  for  the 
injury  he  suffered.  He  prosecuted  him,  arid  laid  his  dam- 
ages at  twenty  thousand  dollars.  Though  the  defendant 
could  not  prove  his  charge,  he  proved  enough  to  throw  a 
stain  of  doubt  on  his  opponent,  which  is  said  to  have  ex- 
cluded him  from  the  society  where  he  had  moved.  It  would 
have  excluded  him  from  any  circle  in  the  North.  A  gentle- 
man in  a  New  England  town  brought  an  elegant  and  wealthy 
bride  from  the  West  Indies,  who  was  slightly  tinged  with 
this  hue.  Her  wealth,  culture,  and  beauty  could  not  secure 
for  her  admittance  into  a  society  below  that  in  which  she 
had  moved  at  home,  and  she  remained  in  seclusion  till  death 
admitted  her  to  the  equal  company  of  heaven.  These  in- 
stances could  be  reproduced  everywhere.  It  is  not  the 
amount,  it  is  the  fact,  of  African  blood  that  puts  its  in- 


128  CASTE    THE   CORNER-STONE 

heritor  without  the  pale  of  those  who  boast  that  they  are  of 
Caucasian  origin. 

A  Virginia  court  has  lately  refused  freedom  to  some  per- 
sons, three  fourths  white.,  saying  such  a  precedent  would 
free  one  tenth  of  the  slaves  in  the  State.  We  grant  no  real 
freedom  to  those  who  are  nine  hundred  and  ninety-nine  thou- 
sandths white,  if  the  other  thousandth  be  of  African  blood. 
A  young  lady,  at  a  Northern  seminary,  the  slave  daughter 
of  a  Southern  slaveholder,  was  the  acknowledged  belle  of 
the  school,  and  so  remained  for  many  terms.  On  the  dis- 
covery of  her  being  slightly  affected  with  Afric  blood,  she 
fell  from  her  high  estate,  and  only  her  affiance  with  an  hon- 
orable gentleman,  whom  she  afterwards  married,  prevented 
her  becoming  an  outcast.  If  this  prejudice  works  so  pow- 
erfully in  these  extreme  cases,  how  must  it  rage  in  the  gen- 
eral feeling  toward  the  great  masses  of  our  brethren,  whose 
skin  is  touched  with  a  browner  hue  than  that  which  bleaches 
upon  our  bones  ? 

3.  But  you  will  say  a  sentiment  so  deep  and  all-pervading 
is  not  prejudice  ;  it  is  nature.  Is  it  so  ?  If  so,  our  oppo- 
sition ceases.  We  shall  not  ask  you  to  violate  the  laws  of 
Nature.  On  the  contrary,  we  affirm  that  it  is  unnatural.  We 
use  this  word  not  in  a  moral  sense,  but  physical.  It  is  unnat- 
ural physically  ;  it  is  inhuman  morally.  It  is  so,  because,— 

(1.)  We  have  no  such  feelings  toward  any  other  class  of 
men.  We  may  dislike  the  Indian,  but  some  of  the  greatest 
men  of  this  nation  boast  of  their  Indian  blood.  Patrick 
Henry  and  John  Randolph  were  honored  the  more  from  this 
circumstance.  This  blood  is  no  bar  to  any  society,  employ- 
ment, or  dignity.  No  man  has  been  refused  a  pastorate  or 
any  office  on  its  account. 

Yet  eminent  physiologists  affirm  that  the  blacks  are  supe- 
rior to  the  Indians.  A  grander  nature,  more  original,  more 
divine,  has  God  conferred  on  them.  I  heard  a  distinguished 
naturalist  of  Baltimore  say  that  this  despised  people  was 


OF   AMERICAN   SLAVERY.  129 

far  superior  to  the  Indians  in  all  manly  qualities.  Every  ob- 
server of  the  two  must  acknowledge  it.  The  "  poor  In- 
dian," with  all  his  oppressions,  has  been  comparatively  a 
petted  protege"  of  the  nation.*  He  has  been  the  ally  of  war- 
ring whites  for  two  hundred  years.  Missionaries  have  been 
sent  him  from  every  church.  No  legal  bars  have  been 
raised  against  him.  Yet  where  is  he  to-day  ?  Kunning 
before  the  white  man,  or  abiding  among  us,  scarcely  changed 
in  dress,  habits,  or  disposition  from  his  barbaric  ancestors. 
Negroes  were  brought  here  as  slaves ;  were  kept  as  slaves 
everywhere  for  one  hundred  and  fifty  years.  Most  of  them 
are  kept  in  that  condition  until  this  day.  Every  curse  and 
sneer  that  our  souls  could  conceive,  or  tongues  pronounce, 
have  been  thrust  upon  them.  Yet  to-day  they  have  some 
of  the  most  attractive  orators  in  the,  country.  Through  both 
South  and  North  are  found  negro  preachers,  without  learning 
or  culture,  of  such  natural  wit,  pathos,  and  sublimity,  as  make 
the  mass  of  their  white  brethren  in  the  ministry,  before  their 
brightness,  pale  their  ineffectual  fires. 

They  have  given  the  nation  a  style  of  music  which  has 
become  more  diffused  and  more  popular  than  any  other  in 
the  world.  Tasso's  songs  are  said  to  be  sung  by  Venetian 
boatmen.  A  few  ballads  live  by  the  genius  of  Burns  in  the 
glens  of  Scotland.  Such  national  strains  are  found  else- 
where, confined  to  the  lands  where  they  were  born.  But  the 
songs  of  our  enslaved  brethren  have  taken  captive  the  whole 
world.  Bayard  Taylor  says  that  Arabian  minstrels  on  the 
Nile  sing  them  to  their  tarnborines,  instead  of  their  old  hum- 
drum discords.  The  singers  of  Hindostan  relieve  the  audi- 

*  This  statement  has  been  confirmed  by  the  appointment  by  General 
Grant  of  a  half  breed,  Colonel  Parker,  as  the  chief  of  his  military  staff, 
who  also,  since  the  war,  has  married  a  white  lady  of  high  position. 
Not  a  paper,  nor  tongue,  however  hostile,  has  spoken  a  word  against 
either  of  these  events.  Why  .should  they  if  he  should  make  Frederick 
Douglass,  another  half  breed,  of  far  higher  abilities,  the  chief  of  his 
presidential  staff — his  Secretary  of  State? 


130  CASTE   THE   CORNER-STONE 

tors  of  ennui  and  money  by  the  merry  or  plaintive  strains 
of  our  favorite  airs.  Borne  by  their  masters  on  the  wings 
of  commerce,  these  plaints  and  consolations  are  carried  to 
all  the  world,  and  all  the  world  repeats  their  strains. 

They  are  in  highest  honor  here.  Every  street  corner  at- 
tests their  popularity.  Every  city  has  its  band  of  minstrels, 
who  blacken  their  faces,  and  reproduce  plantation  melodies 
and  manners,  for  the  greedy  delight  of  every  class  in  soci- 
ety. One  of  the  wealthiest  gentlemen  of  New  York,  of  the 
highest  social  rank,  said  to  me,  "  I  very  much  prefer  to 
visit  the  negro  minstrels  than  the  opera."  The  unabated 
success  of  these  companies  —  a  success  beyond  that  of 
any  other  class  of  amusements  —  shows  its  deep  and  exten- 
sive popularity.  It  has  made  those  rich  who  can  catch  these 
wild  wails  of  our  national  captives,  and  fashion  them  into 
songs.  If  these  composers  invent  melodies,  and  give  them 
this  dialect,  they  still  keep  close  to  the  character  they  as- 
sume, and  make  both  words  and  tones  sound  forth  the  depths 
of  breaking  hearts.  Few  more  pathetic  pieces  are  in  all 
musical  literature  than  "Lucy  Neal,"  "Uncle  Ned,"  "Old 
Folks  at  Home,"  or  "  Carry  Me  back  to  Old  Virginny." 
How  wonderfully  does  this  experience  of  our  slaves  agree 
with  that  of  their  Hebrew  brethren  by  the  side  of  the  rivers 
of  Babylon  !  "  They  that  wasted  us  required  of  us  a  song." 
God  grant  that,  like  these  their  ancient  brethren,  their  wail- 
ings  may  soon  become  rejoicings  over  their  own  liberty,  in 
their  own  homes,  free  and  happy  forever. 

Not  in  music  alone  do  they  attain  national  eminence,  and 
even  preeminence.  In  courtesy  of  manners  they  have  no 
equals  among  our  whiter  populations.  They  arc  oar  truest 
gentlemen,  in  that  quiet  good  breeding  that  knows  what 
perfect  courtesy  requires.  Not  the  crouching  servility  that 
the  slave-master  requires  and  receives,  but  the  unconscious 
adaptation  to  the  requisites  of  the  street,  or  the  parlor, 
which  forms  the  law  of  good  society,  this  they  instinctively 


OF   AMERICAN    SLAVERY.  131 

exhibit.  Compare  the  manners  of  our  African  and  Indian 
brethren.  The  latter  are  stiff,  ungainly,  feeling  ill  at  ease, 
in  house  or  city.  The  former  slide  instinctively  into  the  best 
postures,  looks,  and  actions,  putting  every  one  at  ease  in 
their  own  unconscious  propriety. 

In  the  culinary  art  they  have  no  rivals.  The  French  alone 
equal  them  in  both  these  graces.  No  Anglo-Saxon  touches 
by  hard  study  that  deft  handling  of  the  mysteries  of  the 
kitchen  which  his  negro  servant  and  slave  attains  by  a  sort 
of  instinct.  They  will  frequently  introduce  new  dishes  — 
a  thing  as  rare  in  an  ordinary  housewife  as  the  creation  of 
a  new  world  ;  and  when  asked  where  they  learned  these  felici- 
tous combinations,  they  reply,  "  Out  of  my  own  head." 
No  cook-book  helps  them  ;  for  they  cannot  read.  They 
make  new  dishes,  as  a  Lowell  or  Browning  makes  new  rhymes, 
or  Mozart  new  melodies,  by  sheer  instinct  of  genius.* 

In  other  gifts  they  excel.  In  aptness  of  imitation,  in  wit 
'and  humor,  in  patience  and  sunniness  of  ..temper, f  in  fidelity 
and  integrity,  they  are  of  the  highest  rank.  Duplicity  they 
have  been  trained  in  by  the  conduct  of  their  oppressors  ; 
and  this  sin  hangs  to  too  large  a  degree  around  those  who 
are  relieved  from  its  immediate  temptation.  In  their  ready 
reception  of  the  Gospel  in  all  its  simple  truth  and  hearti- 
ness, they  arc  without  an  equal. 

Such  are  the  gifts  and  graces  of  those  millions  of  our 
brethren  whose  oneness  with  us  we  declare  to  be  most  un- 
natural. Compare  their  character  with  those  of  other  trans- 
Atlantic  races,  and  then  compare  our  feeling  toward  each. 

*  "  Cooking  is  an  indigenous  talent  of  the  African  race." 

"Now,  there's  Dinah  gets  you  a  capital  dinner,  —  soup,  ragout,  roast 

fowl,  dessert,  ice-creams,  and  all,  —  and  she  creates  it  all  out  of  chaos 

and  old  night." —  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin. 

t  I  never  saw  a  negro  angry,  nor  heard  a  word  of  profanity  from  his 

lips.     Undoubtedly  they  fall  into  these   sins.     But  their  indulgence  in 

them  is  most  rare  in  comparison  with  that  of  their  whiter  brethren. 


132  CASTE     THE   CORNER-STONE 

We  profess  no  such  aversion  to  the  Asiatic  tribes,  or  the 
Polynesian,  or  the  various  branches  of  the  European  family. 
A  cultivated  member  of  any  of  these  families  of  men  might 
move  with  perfect  freedom  in  any  of  our  circles.*  Why 
should  we  so  vehemently  declare  a  prejudice  to  be  founded 
in  nature  which  puts  a  class  far  superior  to  many  of  these 
without  the  pale  of  humanity  ? 

What  is  there,  then,  we  solemnly  ask,  in  view  of  these 
facts,  in  this  portion  of  the  human  family,  that  justifies  the 
idea  so  powerful  in  this  and  every  American  community,  that 
they  are,  by  divine  decree,  set  forever  apart  and  below  the 
rest  of  mankind  ?  Are  they  the  children  of  Cain,  bearing  his 
mark  on  their  foreheads  ?  Much  rather  are  their  haughty  op- 
pressors his  offspring.  Theirs  is  the  faith  and  fate  of  Abel. 

(2.)  On  what  do  we  base  our  dogma  of  necessary  segre- 
gation ?  On  color  ?  What  degree  of  color  is  requisite  to 
enslave  or  liberate  a  man  ?  Where  is  the  Mason  and  Dixon's 
line  among  pigments, —  on  one  side  of  which  a  man  is  changed 
from  a  brother  to  a  beast,  and  crossing  which,  — if  he  can  cross 
it,  as  many  do, — transforms  a  beast  into  a  brother  ?  Where 
run  the  boundaries  that  put  a  son  of  Adam,  of  Noah,  of 
God,  among  another  order  of  beings  than  the  rest  of  his 
brethren  ?  Will  not  this  border  line,  in  its  course,  enter 
the  families  of  proud-blooded  Caucasians,  and  set  husband 
against  wife,  father  against  daughter,  brother  against  sister? 
Does  it  not  to-day,  in  many  a  household  in  this  land,  make 
one  half  of  the  family  the  property  of  the  other  ?  f  Will 
not  this  law  go  yet  further,  and  give  the  lightest  complex- 
ioried  race  dominion  over  their  darker  kindred  ?  Cannot 


*  This  was  confirmed  by  the  visit  to  America  of  the  Queen  of  the 
Sandwich  Islands,  in  1864,  as  well  as  tlrat  of  Japanese  and  Chinese  em- 
bassadors.  All  of  these  were  received  freely  into  our  best  society,  and 
all  of  them  were  far  less  attractive  in  contour  of  face,  or  even  complex- 
ion, as  well  as  in  manners,  than  the  better  class  of  Afric-Amcricans. 

t  See  Note  VI. 


OF   AMERICAN    SLAVERY.  133 

England  quote  this  plea  as  the  conclusive  argument  for  its 
subjugation  of  Ireland,  the  yellow-haired  Saxon  being  the 
natural  superior  of  the  dark-skined  Celt  ?  How  like  an 
unsubstantial  shadow,  as  it  is,  does  this  fantasy  fade  into 
nothingness  before  the  clear  and  sober  light  of  reason  ! 

But  say  you,  "Other  physical  features — the  contour  of 
face,  or  head,  or  foot,  some  real  or  fancied  divergence  from 
the  Caucasian  model  —  are  proofs  that  God  never  designed 
we  should  live  as  one  family  on  the  closest  and  most  sacred 
terms  of  intimacy."  How  do  you  know  they  are  proofs  ? 
Is  there  a  suggestion  in  the  Word  of  God,  is  there  an  im- 
pulse in  the  universal  heart,  is  there  an  instinctive  abhorrence, 
mutual  and  potent,  as  it  must  be,  if  it  is  an  instinct,  in 
regions  where  both  classes  abound.  We  all  know  that 
these  questions  cannot  be  answered  in  the  affirmative.  The 
Bible  teaches  no  such  doctrine.  The  conscience  utters  no 
such  decree.  The  world  has  recognized  no  such  law.  Ethi- 
opia swayed  the  world  from  Memphis.  Ham  ruled  all  man- 
kind from  Nineveh  and  Phoenicia  and  Carthage.*  The  loves  of 
the  Shemite  ^Eneas  and  the  Hamite  Dido  (for  the  Phoenicians 
were  of  Ham's  family)  were  celebrated  by  the  daintiest  scholar 
of  imperial  Rome,  the  Japhethite  Virgil.  Black  Ethiopians 
held  generalships  in  Roman  armies,  professorships  in  Greek 
schools,  and  bishoprics  in  Christian  churches.  Men  with 
all  their  physical  peculiarities  founded  empires,  and  the 
blood  of  Europe's  nobility  and  royalty,  your  own  blood,  if 
traced  far  enough,  may  be  found  to  possess  this  direful  drop 
of  tainted  color. 

(3. )  If  no  physical  reason  can  be  given  for  this  deep-rooted 
prejudice,  the  argument  in  its  favor  is  still  more  fallacious, 
when  we  look  at  the  real  nature  of  humanity.  The  soul's 
dress  is  the  body  —  dress  like  that  the  body  itself  wears, 
of  all  shades,  from  black  to  white,  and  all  shades  alike 

*  See  article  in  the  Methodist  Quarterly,  for  January,  1869,  entitled 
"The  Negro  in  History;  "  written  by  Professor  Blyden,  of  Liberia  Col- 
lege, a  gentleman  of  pure  African  origin. 


134  CASTE   THE   CORNER-STONE 

agreeable  and  comely.  It  is  a  dress  in  which  God,  and 
not  our  own  vanity,  has  arrayed  our  spirits,  and  therefore, 
so  far  from  being  a  ground  of  repulsion,  it  ought  not  to  offer 
any  barrier  to  the  perfect  communion  of  those  it  clothes. 
Are  there  natural,  vital,  eternal  distinctions  in  the  spiritual 
being  of  man  ?  All  confess  there  are  none.  AVhen  we  meet 
these  outcasts  at  the  table  of  the  Lord,  when  we  hear  their 
experiences  of  Christ  in  all  these  highest  exercises  of  the 
mind  and  heart,  there  is  no  knowledge  of  black  or  white. 
All  are  one  in  Christ  Jesus. 

(4.)  But  again  you  will  say,  "  If  this  is  not  unnatural, 
why  does  it  so  powerfully  possess  the  national  heart  ?  "  I 
answer,  Because  of  their  social  condition.  Two  things  chiefly 
create  this  prejudice  among  nations  —  religion  and  social 
condition.  Religion  may  breed  caste.  You  do  not  abhor  the 
black  to-day  any  more  than  the  Christian  of  the  middle 
ages  abhorred  the  Jew,  or  than  the  Jew  in  earlier  ages 
abhorred  the  Christian.  Neither  would  have  treated  the 
other,  when  he  was  in  the  supremacy,  with  any  more  re- 
spect than  a  Southern  white  man  now  treats  his  colored 
brother.  Each  would  have  felt  the  heaviest  curse  resting 
upon  him,  had  he  admitted  his  religious  antagonist  to  his 
table  or  his  bed.  Thus,  too,  the  Mohammedan,  in  the  days 
of  his  power,  and  where  he  still  holds  undisputed  sway, 
treats  his  Christian  brother.  "Dog"  and  "infidel"  are 
his  best  compliments,  death  his  best  hospitality.  Thus,  in 
India,  religion  builds  its  mighty  walls  between  the  same 
blood.  Men  whom  you  cannot  distinguish  apart  in  com- 
plexion, or  any  feature,  are  separated  by  a  gulf  winch  it  is 
death,  and  worse,  to  attempt  to  span. 

Social  condition  breeds  the  same  feeling.  The  English 
Norman  would  have  felt  unutterable  disgust  had  his  Saxon 
neighbor  claimed  social  equality  and  intimacy.  To  this  day 
the  English  noble,  or  even  gentleman,  would  profess  that  he 
had  a  "  natural  "  aversion  to  the  serf,  though  of  one  parent- 


OF   AMERICAN    SLAVERY.  135 

age  a  few  generations  back.  So  a  rich,  especially  if  an  old, 
family  among  us  feels  toward  its  poor  neighbor,  though 
equally  old  and  as  truly  honorable.  The  members  of  it  may 
meet  in  the  same  party,  and  attend  the  same  church,  but 
for  the  rich  man  to  invite  his  poorer  brother  to  his  table,  for 
his  family  to  associate  with  his  neighbors  on  perfect  equality, 
is  a  grace  far  above  their  attainment. 

Their  social  status  has  wrought  this  prejudice  in  us.  It 
is  the  lowest  any  class  can  occupy  toward  their  fellows. 
They  are  slaves.  And  as  the  Egyptians  loathed  the  Jews, 
their  whiter  neighbors,  because  they  were  their  slaves,  as 
Greeks  arid  Romans  shrunk  from  fraternal  communion  with 
their  slaves,  though  of  their  own  blood,  so  we  have  allowed 
this  condition  to  work  in  us  its  baleful  power.  They  are 
slaves,  bought  and  sold.  We  are  free.  The  separation  is 
immeasurable. 

Of  course,  if  those  who  are  in  slavery  have  a  difference 
of  appearance  added  to  their  condition,  we  should  very 
readily  defend  ourselves  on  the  plea  that  this  appearance 
was  the  cause  of  slavery,  and  that  thus  we  were  separated, 
not  by  condition  only,  but  by  nature.  And  from  this  we 
should  easily  conclude  that  they  were  by  race  necessarily 
removed  from  us,  and  there  could  be  no  community  of  inter- 
est, or  friendship,  or  life. 

Hence  arises  American  caste.  The  slave  is  black.  The 
free  are  white.  If  the  slave  is  black,  then  the  black  man 
is,  and  of  right  ought  to  be,  a  slave.  If  the  black  man  ought 
to  be  a  slave,  and  the  white  man  free,  then  there  is  a  vital, 
natural  and  eternal  distinction  between  them  —  a  great  gulf 
lixod  by  God. 

Thus  the  diabolic  argument  is  framed,  and  our  consciences 
seared  as  with  a  hot  iron.  Slavery  alone  has  caused  this 
creed  ;  its  abolition,  as  all  history  attests,  will  cause  its 
destruction. 

(5.)  Another  proof  that  this  aversion  is  unnatural  is,  that 


136  CASTE   THE   CORNER-STONE 

it  is  largely  confined  to  countries  where  the  black  man  is  a 
slave.  No  strong  prejudice  exists  in  Europe.  Queen  Victoria, 
at  the  marriage  of  her  eldest  daughter,  placed  in  a  promi- 
nent position  among  her  retinue  a  black  lady,  a  princess 
from  Africa.  A  black  man  sits  in  the  legislative  chamber 
of  France.  Students  of  this  color  are  in  the  English  univer- 
sities, and  in  the  society  of  Propaganda  at  Rome.  Dumas, 
the  most  popular  of  French  writers,  is  the  grandson  of  a 
negro,  and  possesses  marked  African  features.  Fugitives 
from  our  shores  melt  into  the  current  of  European  society 
as  easily  as  their  whiter  brethren.* 

'If  it  is  a  natural  sentiment,  it  must  be  universal.  It 
must  exist  outside  of  the  region  that  is  cursed  with  a  sys- 
tem which,  in  its  living  presence,  or  in  its  almost  equally 
powerful  memories,  has  wrought  within  us  these  convic- 
tions. As  it  has  no  such  existence,  it  is  contrary  to  nature. 

(6.)  Finally,  we  declare  this  prejudice  unnatural  because 
it  is  contrary  to  the  Scriptures.  The  Scriptures  never 
speak  disrespectfully  of  the  black  race.  "  I  am  black,  but 
comely,"  says  Christ  of  Himself,  in  the  Canticles.  It  says, 
"Can  the  Ethiopian  change  his  skin?"  —not  because  it  is 
desirable,  but  because  it  is  impossible.  If  you  claim  that  a 
change  is  desired  here,  then  it  is  also  in  the  parallel  passage, 
"or  the  leopard  his  spots."  But  as  the  skin  of  the  leopard 
is  the  handsomest  that  clothes  any  animal,  it  may  be  in- 
tended to  affirm  that  the  skin  of  the  Ethiopian  is  the  hand- 
somest of  all  human  cuticles.  The  parallelism  of  the  He- 
brew writers  would  approve  that  conclusion. 

*  Later  events  multiply  these  instances.  The  most  celebrated  drag- 
oman I  met  in  Alexandria  was  as  black  a  Nubian  as  was  ever  sold  in 
Richmond,  and  far  blacker  than  most  of  that  property.  Yet  all  rivals 
gave  way  to  him  as  being  far  more  accomplished,  as  well  as  more 
capable.  Rev.  Dr.  Bellows  commends,  in  his  late  Travels  in  the  East, 
the  beauty  of  the  blacks  of  Cairo.  Colored  gentlemen's  daughters,  in 
Paris,  are  surd  by  white  lovers  as  flatteringly  and  as  earnestly  as  other 
ladies  of  wealth  and  position. 


OF   AMERICAN   SLAVERY.  137 

It  finds  no  place  in  all  Bible  history.  Solomon  treated 
the  Queen  of  Sheba,  a  negress  of  Abyssinia,  with  the  ut- 
most respect  and  cordiality ;  Philip  ran  reverently  by  the 
side  of  the  chariot  of  a  negro,  the  chief  minister  of  the 
court  of  her  successor ;  Moses  married  an  Ethiopian ;  a 
negro  was  called  of  God  and  his  brethren  to  be  one  of 
"  the  prophets  and  teachers  of  the  church  at  Antioch," 
with  Barnabas  and  the  foster-brother  of  Herod,  and  was 
also  called  by  the  Holy  Ghost  to  lay  his  hands,  ip  company 
with  those  of  his  brethren,  upon  the  heads  of  Paul  and  Bar- 
nabas— the  first  Christian  ordination  that  is  upon  record,  and 
one  that  our  ministers  would  do  well  speedily  to  imitate. 

More  than  this  :  the  Bible  constantly  proclaims  the  abso- 
lute oneness  of  the  race  of  man,  in  Adam,  Noah,  and  Christ. 
Against  this  divine  rock  every  wave  of  infidelity  beats  to- 
day, and  beats  in  vain.  Let  the  church,  let  every  Chris- 
tian, beware  how  they  aid  this  assault  of  false  science  by 
a  more  false  humanity.  Cling  to  the  central  doctrine  of  the 
Word  of  God — one  man,  one  Savior,  one  God.  Whatever 
opposes  or  rejects  this  truth,  reject  and  oppose  it.  Pluck  out 
your  right  eye,  if  it  sees,  or  professes  to  see,  any  separation 
among  the  children  of  men.  Cut  off  your  right  hand,  if  it 
strikes  down  your  brother  because  the  same  .  blood,  and  of 
the  same  color  as  your  own,  puts  on  a  darker  hue,  but  not 
unlovelier  as  it  appears  upon  his  countenance,  than  upon 
your  own. 

Thus  falls  the  plea  that  this  sin  is  according  to  nature. 
It  was  never  heard  of  till  within  less  than  two  hundred 
years,  and  then  only  within  our  territorial  limits.  It  will 
never  be  heard  of  two  hundred  years  hence  ;  and  in  far  less 
time  than  that,  if  the  iniquity  out  of  which  it  flourishes  shall 
disappear.  When  slavery  dies,  this  its  child  and  parent, 
whose  foul  breast  preserves  its  fouler  life,  shall  fast  follow 
it  to  its  unholy  grave.  May  God  hasten  to  deliver  the  land 
from  Loth  abominations.  Already  is  the  mingling  of  the 


138  CASTE   THE   CORNER-STONE 

diverse  complexions  going  foi*ward.  In  the  West  Indies,  so 
general  is  amalgamation  that  men  and  women  of  a  culture 
and  beauty,  of  a  wealth  and  lineage,  that  the  proudest  Bos- 
tonian  or  Virginian  would  envy,  boast  of  their  mixed  blood. 
The  Chief  Justice  of  Jamaica  is  of  this  origin.  No  reflection 
on  color  is  allowed  in  any  fashionable  circle  in  that  island. 
It  would  be  a  taunt  at  many -of  the  gentlemen  and  ladies  in 
the  assembly. 

In  Brazil,  so  utterly  extinct  is  this  prejudice,  —  if  it  ever 
existed, — that  the  black  and  mixed  bloods  are  in  the  highest 
national  offices.  When  Governor  Wise,  of  Virginia,  was  sent 
as  minister  to  Brazil,  his  wife  was  compelled  to  accept  the  ser- 
vice of  a  colored  physician  to  escort  her  to  the  shore,  whom 
she  would  have  flogged  at  home  for  assuming  such  a  pro- 
fession, or  if  he  had  not  bowed  his  head,  and  spoken  in 
the  most  cringing  manner,  with  the  enforced  dialect  of  his 
brethren. 

4.  The  great  objection  to  this  feeling  is,  that  it  is  almost 
the  sole  bulwark 'of  slavery.  Other  systems  of  slavery  are 
based  on  other  pretensions.  The  slaves  of  India  are  held 
in  that  estate  by  the  combined  strength  of  wars  and  creeds  : 
the  ruling  class  having  subdued  the  aboriginal  peoples  in 
war,  and  then  bound  them  in  the  fetters  of  caste.  Slavery 
in  Russia  is  simply  that  of  noble  'and  serf.  Our  slavery 
can  have  no  such  basis.  Slaves  are  not  captives  of  war 
waged  by  present  masters.  They  are  not  separated  in  their 
religious  life  by  form,  or  ceremony,  or  creed,  although 
many  attempts  are  made  to  create  such  distinctions.  The 
glorious  Gospel  of  the  blessed  God,  much  as  it  has  been 
perverted  and  suppressed,  there  and  here,  in  its  teachings 
and  inspirations  as  to  the  oneness  of  man,  and  especially  of 
all  believers,  has  often  broken  through  this  wall  of  prejudice, 
and  both  theoretically  and  practically  compelled  the  white 
to  recognize  his  slave  as  his  brother.  Colored  churches, 
pews,  galleries,  and  all  the  other  high  walls  and  huge  that 


OF   AMERICAN    SLAVERY.  139 

the  enemy  has  erected  in  the  house  of  God,  sometimes  dis- 
appear like  walls  of  black  cloud  before  the  powerful  beams 
of  the  Sun  of  Righteousness  and  of  love. 

The  only  basis  of  this  system  is  the  divinely  ordained 
separation  of  the  colored  man  from  his  whiter  brother.  Were 
they  white,  they  could  not  be  kept  in  slavery  a  year. 
But  the  South  says,  "  They  are  so  distinct  a  people  that  it 
is  impossible  for  us  to  ever  mingle  together."  How  the 
complexion  of  their  slaves  gives  the  lie  to  this  pretense  ! 
"  If  they  are  so  distinct  a  people,  they  cannot  become  one 
with  us  by  any  process.  If  inferior,  AVO  must  be  their  nat- 
ural protectors  ;  if  protectors,  possessors.  If  they  were  not 
created  equal,  they  are  perpetual  servants,  and  involuntary 
servitude  is  thus  entailed  upon  them  and  their  children  for- 
ever. We  will  make  this  paternal,  patriarchal,  considerate 
as  possible,  but  we  cannot  change  fate."  Thus,  from  our 
cruelty  of  soul  toward  our  brother's  face  springs  forth  the 
horrid  form  of  chattel  slavery.  We  may  abhor  the  conclu- 
sion. We  consent  to  its  basis.  Only  by  denying  the  prem- 
ise, earnestly,  practically,  constantly,  shall  we  escape  the 
fatal  snare  that  makes  us  dumb  and  powerless  before  these 
enemies  of  the  human  race  and  its  Divine  Father. 

The  South  could  not  long  withstand  the  influence  of  the 
Free  North,  were  we  not  thus  partakers  in  this  sin  —  its 
feeders  and  nurturers.  When  they  observe,  with  all  our 
abolitionism,  no  recognition  of  the  unity  of  man  ;  when  they 
see  these,  our  brethren,  set  apart  in  churches  and  schools, 
or,  if  allowed  to  enter  our  churches,  driven  into  the  lowest 
seats  ;  when  they  behold  every  avenue  of  honorable  effort 
shut  against  them,  —  that  no  clerk  of  this  complexion  is 
endured  in  our  stores,  no  apprentice  in  our  woi'kshops,  no 
teacher  in  our  schools,  no  physician  at  our  sick-beds,  no 
minister  in  our  pulpits,  —  how  can  we  reproach  them  for 
their  sins,  or  urge  them  to  repentance  ?  Where  is  there  a 
colored  family  dwelling  in  perfect  intimacy  with  its  neigh- 


140  CASTE   THE    CORNER-STONE 

bors  ?  Where  is  there  a  friendly  party  in  which  they  appear 
$s  welcome  and  equal  guests  ?  Where  is  the  neighborhood, 
we  might  almost  ask,  the  person,  who  communes  with  this 
brother,  heart  in  heart,  neither  noticing  nor  thinking  of  the 
difference  of  complexion  ?  How  deep,  how  wide-spreading, 
how  exceeding  bitter,  are  these  roots  of  bitterness  ! 

Till  this  iniquity  is  done  away,  we  are  verily  guilty  con- 
cerning our  brother.  We  are  speechless  before  Southern 
effrontery  and  sophistry.  We  are  approving  and  acting 
upon  the  very  ideas  they  faithfully  carry  out  in  their  laws, 
their  customs,  their  "  domestic  institution."  When  our 
churches  are  not  based  on  the  practical  disunity  of  the  race, 
when  our  workshops,  our  stores,  our  juries,  our  halls  of 
legislation,  our  family  relations,  give  no  evidence  of  the 
existence  of  this  iniquity  in  our  hearts  or  lives,  then  we 
can  say  to  our  Southern  brethren,  "  Go  thou  and  do  like- 
wise." When  Frederic  Douglass  stands  in  Congress,  Avith 
other  members,  and  above  them,  as  he  will  stand  when  he 
arrives  there ;  when  Charles  Rcmond  can  move  in  the  circle 
to  which  his  wealth  and  culture  give  him  the  passport ;  when 
Dr.  Permington  is  settled  over  a  congregation  of  faithful  wor- 
shipers of  every  hue  and  one  heart ;  when  we  see  our  col- 
ored brethren  moving  around  our  conference  appointments 
with  no  more  thought  of  their  color  than  there  is  of  those  who 
now  occupy  them  ;  when  these  things  are  witnessed  among 
us,  we  shall  no  longer  need  to  entertain  this  topic  as  a 
subject  of  humiliation,  fasting,  and  prayer.  Till  then,  we 
must  humble  ourselves,  and  pray  earnestly  for  our  deliver- 
ance from  the  chains  of  a  bondage  so  inhuman  and  ungodly. 

But  you  may  say,  "  My  prejudice  has  nothing  to  do  with 
this  iniquity.  Can  there  not  be  equality  without  fraternity  ?  " 
Certainly,  but  not  without  capacity  for  fraternity,  if  the 
necessary  conditions  are  fulfilled.  For  instance :  A  rich 
democrat  may  grant  that  his  poor  political  brother  is  his  es- 
sential equal,  and  yet  not  fraternize  with  him.  But  if  he 


OF   AMERICAN    SLAVERY.  141 

says  that  brother's  hair,  or  eyes,  or  contoiy,  or  complexion, 
is  such,  that  if  every  other  disability  were  removed,  — pov- 
erty, ignorance,  and  rudeness,  —  he  could  not,  nor  could  his 
family,  for  a  thousand  generations,  be  his  real  companion  and 
brother,  —  such  a  democrat  could  never  believe  in  the  real 
equality  of  his  poorer  kinsman  with  himself.  So,  if  we  say 
the  colored  man  is  our  equal,  but  we  will  never  fraternize 
with  him  ;  never  invite  him  to  our  houses  and  tables  ;  never 
give  him  a  seat  in  our  pulpits  or  pews  ;  never  have  him  as 
our  teacher  or  pupil,  as  our  apprentice  or  ma%ster-workrnan, 
—  all  our  talk  about  equality,  without  fraternity,  is  a  mock- 
ery and  a  lie. 

Hence  it  is  that  the  great  majority  of  those  who  go 
South,  not  having  wrought  into  them  this  sense  of  his  per- 
fect equality  with  us  in  all  the  essentials  of  manhood,  but 
looking  on  him  as  of  an  outcast  race,  are  powerless  before 
the  sophistries  of  the  slavocrat,  and  soon  concede  that  the 
system  is  necessary  in  order  to  their  existence,  while  it  is 
necessary  solely  because  of  this  wicked  feeling  that  pervades 
the  whole  land. 

Thus,  my  friends,  we  have  carefully  and  honestly  exam- 
ined this  feeling  of  aversion  to  our  colored  brethren,  as  of 
one  blood  and  destiny  with  ourselves,  in  the  light  of  his- 
tory, of  reason,  of  the  general  sentiment  of  mankind,  of 
the  Scriptures,  and  of  the  strength  which  it  gives  to  the 
system  of  Slavery.  All  of  them  condemn  it.  Notwithstand- 
ing its  depth  and  universality  with  us,  it  is  unnatural  and 
inhuman.  It  is  the  great  author  and  sustainer  of  slavery, 
its  chief  corner-stone,  and  the  cement  of  its  walls.  It  must 
die  before  this  great  crime  fully  ends. 

In  the  divine  condemnation,  are  we  not  ourselves  in- 
cluded ?  We,  so  active  in  political  strife  for  Northern  su- 
premacy, so  furious  against  Southern  aggression  —  "We 
are  verily  guilty  concerning  our  brother."  AVe  refuse 
to  call  him  our  brother  in  our  heart  and  in  our  life. 


142  CASTE    THE    CORNER-STONE 

We  treat  him  far  worse  than  the  children  of  Jacob  did 
their  brother,  and  must  yet,  for  this  conduct,  meet,  as  did 
they,  the  judgments  of  a  just  arid  angry  God. 

III.  What  is  the  cure  of  Slavery  ?  Not  Kansas  ;  not  presi- 
dential triumphs  ;  not  reversals  of  the  infamous  decisions  of  a 
packed  and  slavish  court ;  not  the  removal  of  wicked  judges 
from  the  seat  they  have  stained  with  their  shameful  edicts ; 
not  the  complete  triumph  of  Anti-slavery  in  all  the  National 
Councils,  so  that  Freedom  shall  be  national,  as  it  now  is  sec- 
tional. None  of  these  things  will  completely  extinguish 
this  horror  of  sin.  Four  millions  of  persons  will  yet  be  held 
in  profitable,  in  unspeakable,  bondage.  The  wealth,  and  fash- 
ion, and  refinement  of  the  slaveholder  will  control  the  whole 
land  as  it  does  to-day  ;  for  Charleston  and  Richmond  give 
tone  to  the  fashion  of  the  nation.  Fifth  Avenue  and  Beacon 
Street  submit  to  their  sway  as  easily  as  the  rich  manufac- 
turers and  merchants  of  England  follow  the  style  set  by  their 
nobility  ;  as  easily  as  our  new  rich  men  imitate,  as  far  as 
possible,  the  style  of  those  who  have  grown  up  amid  the 
refinements  of  wealth  and  luxury.  We  shall  still  hate  and 
despise  those  who  have  any  drops  of  African  blood  in  their 
veins.  We  must  do  these  first  duties  in  politics,  and  in  the 
Church,  but  we  must  not  leave  the  great  duty  undone.  We 
must  extirpate  this  prejudice  from  our  hearts.  We  must 
set  the  reason,  the  conscience,  against  this  sentiment,  and 
work  all  their  power  till  it  is  completely  obliterated. 

But  you  may  ask,  How  shall  I  begin  the  cure  ? 

1.  By  resolving  to  think  no  more  of  the  color  of  the  skin 
than  you  do  of  the  eyes,  and  to  like  its  color,  as  you  do 
that  of  the  eyes.     Look  at  the  heart,  at  the  divine  likeness 
there,  and  let  your  feelings  be  excited   only  by  sympathy 
with  its  virtues. 

2.  You  must  be  willing  to  welcome  them  to  your  house 
and  table,   if   they  are  worthy  of  such  a  welcome.     You 
must  give  them  this  hospitality,  if  they  have  been  prevented 


OF   AMERICAN    SLAVERY.  143 

by  the  prejudices  of  society  from  attaining  that  style  of 
manners  which  you  see  they  are  capable  of  reaching  under 
proper  encouragement.  I  do  not  say  that  every  one  pos- 
sessing this  blood  should  be  thus  treated.  Our  tastes  differ 
in  our  friendships  as  in  our  food.  Only  those  whose  native 
traits  resemble  yours,  or  such  as  are  agreeable  to  you, 
are  you  under  obligation  to  admit  to  this  intimacy.  But 
you  must  not  let  your  unnatural  aversion  keep  you  from 
doing  this  social  duty.  You  must  admit  them,  if  other- 
wise agreeable,  to  aril  these  rights  and  privileges.  You  will 
find  them  among  the  most  charming  of  all  the  guests  of  your 
family.  They  will  prove  the  shining  lights  of  your  table. 

But  last  Sabbath,  I  had  the  pleasure  of  introducing  a 
brother  minister  —  a  fugitive  slave  —  to  the  table  where  I 
was  a  guest ;  and,  though  many  others  surrounded  that 
table,  none  surpassed  or  equaled  him  in  giving  animation 
to  the  hour.  Among  the  many  who  honor  my  house  and 
table  with  their  presence,  none  have  more  refinement,  orig- 
inality of  thought  and  language,  rich  and  playful  natures, 
and  none  give  more  elevation  to  the  society,  in  piety 
or  in  talents,  than  some  of  these  despised  men  and  women 
You  lose  some  of  the  best  opportunities  to  enliven  and 
improve  your  social  life  by  refusing  these  kindred  spirits 
an  equal  place  at  your  board.  If  you  could  have  the 
humor  of  an  Irving,  the  wit  of  a  Holmes,  or  the  re- 
finement of  an  Everett,  to  adorn  your  table,  you  would 
feel  that  you  Were  exalted  by  their  presence.  I  know  of 
some  of  these  so-called  repulsive  men  and  women  whose  wit 
is  as  brilliant  as  Mrs.  Stowe's,  whose  manners  are  as  refined 
as  Everett's,  whose  conversation  is  a  perfect  mine  of  genial 
sportfulness  and  clear-headed  wisdom.* 

3.  You  must  go  further  than  this.  They  have  a  right,  and 
ought  to  be  encouraged,  to  enter  the  various  paths  of  indus- 

*  Among  those  visitors  was  one  since  famous  in  all  the  land  —  Sojourn- 
er  Truth.     She  is  an  admirable  guest,  full  of  genius  and  of  grace. 


144  CASTE   THE   CORNER-STONE 

try  and  enterprise.  Where  is  the  colored  clerk,  the  colored 
apprentice,  the  colored  foreman,  or  physician,  or  preacher, 
that  practices  his  vocation  among  his  whiter  brethren  ?  True, 
these  men  are  found,  but  only  among  and  for  those  of  their 
own  color.  You  can  find  them  in  Brattle  Street,  and  be- 
hind the  West  End  aristocracy  of  Boston,  like  the  kitchen 
behind  and  below  the  parlor ;  but  that  is  no  better,  nor  as 
good,  a  position  as  their  free  brothers  hold  in  the  South. 
You  must  give  them  a  chance  to  develop  their  talents.  The 
ablest  salesman  in  a  large  wholesale  house,  in  a  city  where 
I  once  resided,  was  a  colored  man  ;  but  he  was  only  allowed 
the  name  and  salary  of  a  porter,  notwithstanding  his  ac- 
knowledged capacity.  We  should  put  the  smart  and  intel- 
ligent colored  boy  or  girl  into  just  as  good  stations,  and 
open  before  them  just  as  good  opportunities,  as  their  white 
playmates  have.  In  one  of  the  outer  schools  of  Northamp- 
ton I  saw  a  very  handsome  colored  lad.  He  surpassed  all 
his  schoolmates  in  every  attraction,  and,  had  he  had  equal 
chances,  would  have  surpassed  them  in  the  struggles  of 
manhood.  But  his  superiority  ended  there.  They  could 
go  to  the  town,  to  Boston,  to  New  York,  and,  by  force  of 
character  and  favorable  circumstances,  could  rise  to  wealth 
and  social  power.  The  majority  of  the  present  rulers  of 
this  region  were  poor  back  country  children.  Had  their 
dusky  playmates  had  equal  chances,  they  would  hold  now 
equal,  if  not  superior,  positions.  We  have  a  poor  shoe- 
maker leading  our  State  at  Washington  ;  a  poor  mill-boy 
and  machinist  leading  it  at  home.  If  these  men  had  had  the 
least  drop  of  Afric's  blood,  with  all  their  present  abilities,  — 
yea,  with  vastly  greater  abilities,  —  they  would  never  have 
been  allowed  to  be  even  a  poor  shoemaker  or  mill-boy. 
These  offices  are  too  high  for  the  colored  man. 

We  curse  them  with  a  bitterer  curse  than  any  proud  em- 
pire of  Europe  lays  on  its  lowest  population.  England's 
nobles,  in  not  a  few  instances,  are  children  of  the  lowest 


OF   AMERICAN   SLAVERY.  145 

class.  Sir  Robert  Peel's  grandfather  was  a  poor  hireling  ; 
Napoleon's  counselors  and  generals,  and  Austria's  greatest 
chieftain,  —  Radetzky,  —  were  from  the  lowest  class. 
Slaves  born,  and  still  held  as  slaves,  are  among  the  first 
officers  of  Russia  ;  men  who  pay  twenty  thousand  dollars 
a  year  to  their  owners  as  a  rent  for  themselves,  and  grow 
rich  with  that  deduction  from  their  income.  But  with  us, 
if  a  colored  man  becomes  rich,  it  is  in  a  low  or  contraband 
way,  and  his  riches  give  him  no  ingress  to  society,  which 
his  talents  and  accomplishments  merit  and  demand. 

The  South  is  superior  to  us  in  this  matter  of  prejudice, 
for  the  same  reason  that  the  Tories  of  England  are  more  lib- 
eral in  their  treatment  of  their  ignoble  associates  than  their 
rivals,  because,  though  they  make  a  Jew  their  parliamentary 
leader,  there  is  yet  a  great  gulf  betwixt  him  and  the  nobility. 
So  the  slaveholder,  despising  all  labor,  can  make  his  slave 
his  overseer  or  master  workman.  The  Northern  workman, 
living  by  labor,  is  foolishly  sensitive  lest  the  South  should 
make  him  one  with  the  black,  if  he  admitted  the  black  to 
be  one  with  him.  These  things  ought  not  so  to  be.  Let 
them  enter  not  above,  but  according  to  their  ability ;  let  the 
simple  take  the  simple's  place,  the  able,  the  able's. 

IV.  But  you  will  say  this  social,  business,  and  political 
equality  may  lead  to  another,  the  very  thought  of  which  is 
insufferable.  My  friends,  all  I  have  said  is,  I  am  aware,  very 
unpalatable  to  you.  It  would  be  insufferable  if  spoken  two 
hundred  miles  south  of  us.  It  could  not  have  been  spoken 
below  Washington,  nor  there  save  by  one  protected  by  the 
State  whom  he  represents.  We  must  not  fear  to  declare 
the  whole  counsel  of  God  in  this  matter.  The  question  that 
has  been  uppermost  in  your  hearts  in  all  this  discourse, 
that  will  leap  from  your  lips  as  soon  as  their  enforced  silence 
is  broken,  let  us  briefly  and  calmly  consider.  When  Gov- 
ernor Banks,  by  whose  authority  we  meet  to-day,*  was  asked 

*  At  Roxbury,  1856. 
10 


146  CASTE   THE   CORNER-STONE 

by  the  Southern  catechist,  when  he  was  a  candidate  for  the 
Speaker's  chair,  in  order  to  cover  him  with  infamy,  whether 
he  believed  in  amalgamation,  with  a  promptness,  indepen- 
dence, and  courage,  that  but  few  ministers  of  the  Gospel, 
and  fewer  of  any  other  class,  would  have  exhibited,  he  an- 
swered, that  "  the  more  powerful  race  would  absorb  the 
weaker,  and  it  was  an  undecided  question  of  physiology  yet, 
which  was  the  stronger."  So,  when  you  ask  us  if  we  believe 
in  the  intermarriage  of  the  races,  we  answer,  True  mar- 
riage is  a  divine  institution.  Such  hearts  are  knit  together 
by  the  hand  that  originally  wove  them  in  separate  but  half- 
finished  webs.  God  makes  this  unity.  If  He  does  not, 
then  it  is  a  conventional,  human  thing,  subject  to  the  whims 
of  human  society.  As  it  respects  such  marriage,  all  I  need 
to  say  is,  "  It  is  none  of  our  business.  It  is  the  business  of 
the  two  souls  that  are  thus  made  one  by  the  goodness  and 
greatness  of  their  Creator."  Parents  have  advisory  power 
to  a  certain  extent.  If  it  is  not  of  God,  but  only  of  tran- 
sient passion,  of  pride,  of  ambition,  of  desire  for  wealth, 
then  parents  may  have  complete,  or  nearly  complete,  control 
until  their  children  have  attained  a  legal  age.  But  if  heart 
is  one  with  heart,  then  with  Shakspeare  must  you  say, — 

"  Let  me  not  to  the  marriage  of  true  souls 
Admit  impediment." 

That  greatest  of  poets  and  thinkers  carries  this  principle  to 
its  full  expression  in  the  marriage  of  the  most  womanly  of 
his  women  and  the  most  manly  of  his  men.  He  sets  the 
loves  of  Desdemona  and  Othello  far  above  the  range  of 
groveling  criticism.  The  whole  story  of  that  event  seems 
to  have  been  made  for  our  land  and  hour.  It  is  a  protest 
against  this  curse  such  as  no  subsequent  poet  in  all  litera- 
ture has  ever  attained.  Read  it  and  see  the  feelings  of 
the  American  heart  painted  and  denounced  by  this  master 
of  human  nature. 


OF   AMERICAN    SLAVERY.  147 

Desdemona's  father,  a  rich  and  proud  Venetian,  full  of  the 
spirit  of  caste,  like  many  such  a  father  in  this  nation  to-day, 
when  he  learned  of  his  daughter's  secret  marriage,  cries  out 
thus  against  her  distinguished  and  noble  husband  :  — 

"  O  thou  foul  thief,  where  hast  thou  stowed  my  daughter? 
Damned  as  thou  art,  thou  hast  enchanted  her ; 
For  I'll  refer  me  to  all  things  of  sense, 
If  she  in  chains  of  magic  were  not  bound, 
Whether  a  maid  so  tender,  fair,  and  happy, 
So  opposite  to  marriage,  that  she  shunned 
The  wealthy  curled  darlings  of  her  nation, 
Would  ever  have  to  incur  the  general  mock, 
Run  from  her  guardage  to  the  sooty  bosom 
Of  such  a  thing  as  thou  !  " 

In  his  unrestrained  rage  he  again  bursts  out :  — > 

"  That  she,  in  spite  of  nature, 
Of  years,  of  country,  credit,  everything, 
To  fall  in  love  with  what  she  feared  to  look  on ! 
It  is  a  judgment  maimed  and  most  imperfect 
That  will  confess  perfection  so  could  err 
Against  all  rules  of  nature,  and  must  be  driven 
To  find  out  practices  of  cunning  hell 
Why  this  should  be." 

To  this  storming  American,  Othello  before  the  Duke 
makes  reply  —  a  reply  so  dignified,  so  manly,  so  majestic  in 
rhythm  and  in  feeling,  that  it  seems  as  if  Shakspeare  felt 
that  he  was  pleading  for  God  and  humanity  against  the 
contemptible  prejudices  of  this  age  and  nation.  The  great 
Duke,  at  the  close  of  Othello's  speech,  says  truly,  as  you 
and  every  one  unprejudiced  would  have  said,  — 

'•  I  think  this  tale  would  win  my  daughter  too." 

Even  Brabantio,  her  father,  softens  in  his  prejudices,  and 
declares,  — 

If  she  confess  that  she  was  half  the  wooer, 
Destruction  on  my  head,  if  my  bad  blame 
Light  on  the  man." 


148  CASTE    THE   CORNER-STONE 

4 

And  after  Desdemona's  frank  acknowledgment  of  her 
love,  he  generously  gives  her  to  him  "with  all  his  heart" 
—  an  example  many  a  now  wrathful  father  among  us  will 
yet  faithfully  follow. 

In  all  cases  of  true  affection,  this  higher  law  than  man's 
must  have  sway.  If  God  makes  such  marriages  between 
the  white  and  the  colored,  who  art  thou  that  refusest  to 
bless  His  bands  ?  Such  marriages,  Heaven-made  and  blessed, 
have  occurred.  In  Jamaica,  in  Brazil,  in  Mexico,  happy 
souls,  whose  outward  hue  is  varied,  whose  inward  blood 
arises  from  remote  fountains,  are  made  one  in  a  perfect  mar- 
riage. In  our  own  land  it  is  already  no  uncommon  thing. 

The  necessities  of  the  heart  demand  it.  The  loveliest 
maidens  of  the  South  are  often  of  mixed  blood.  A  pure 
and  noble  man  will  seek  a  pure  and  noble  mate,  and  he  is 
more  apt  to  find  her  in  that  class  than  any  other,  for  the 
pride  and  bitterness  of  the  white  and  slaveholding  women 
do  not  defile  her  soul.  Society  lays  its  heavy  hand  on  his 
affections  and  crushes  them.  It  lays  its  hellish  laws  on  her, 
and  despoils  her  of  her  virtue,  so  far  as  she  can  lose  it, 
against  every  remonstrance  of  her  whole  nature.  Here  and 
there  a  rich  man  rises  superior  to  society,  and  abides  hon- 
orably to  his  love  and  vows,  though  no  minister  will  conse- 
crate them.  Said  a  clergyman  to  Mrs.  Johnson,  the  God- 
given  wife  of  Vice-President  Richard  M.  Johnson,  "You 
cannot  join  the  Church,  because  you  have  not  been  married." 
She  told  her  husband  what  had  been  said  to  her.  He  re- 
plied, "  Tell  your  minister,  my  dear,  that  I  am  ready,  and 
always  have  been,  to  be  publicly  married,  and  ask  him  to 
come  and  marry  us  this  very  night."  The  clergyman  dared 
not  do  his  duty,  even  at  the  request  of  one  so  high  in  station. 
Thus  he  kept  a  Christian  woman  from  the  Church  for  a  sin 
which  he  and  his  Church  fastened  upon  her.  No  wonder 
that  her  husband,  in  his  official  career,  hurled  indignant 
epithets  at  the  Church,  and  died  without  its  pale.  Many  a 


OF   AMERICAN    SLAVERY.  149 

man,  were  this  curse  removed,  would  follow  his  honorable 
instincts,  and  rejoice  in  the  wife  of  his  love  and  youth, 
proud  of  the  very  charms  her  tropical  blood  has  given  her. 
When  slavery  dies,  this  prejudice  will  die.  There  will  be 
no  more  objection  to  this  blood,  if  its  possessor  is  attrac- 
tive, than  the  long  bigoted  New  Englander  or  Englishman 
objects  to  his  heart's  love,  though  every  drop  of  her  blood 
flows  from  foreign  fountains.  The  grand  ladies  of  the  South 
will  yet  be  the  mixed  bloods  of  that  region,  and  many  a 
white,  fastidious,  and  wealthy  Solomon  will  solicit  the 
duskier,  yet  none  the  less  loving  and  lovely  daughter  of 
Pharaoh,  to  give  his  house  her  perpetual  blessing. 

I  have  spoken,  my  friends,  with  great  plainness  of  speech, 
my  honest,  and  earnest,  and  long-held  convictions  on  this 
subject.  I  believe  that  caste  is  the  great  sin  of  this  nation, 
and  that  it  is  the  great  duty  of  every  one  to  extirpate  it  first 
from  himself,  and  then  from  every  heart  which  he  can  influ- 
ence. The  reform  must  begin  here.  I  rejoice  that  it  has 
begun.  We  have  abolished  from  the  statute  books  laws 
forbidding  intermarriage,  creating  separate  schools,  and  de- 
priving them  of  the  right  of  suffrage  and  office.  In  the  eye 
of  the  law  they  are  equal ;  but  the  Gospel  must  effect 
"  what  the  law  cannot  do,  in  that  it  is  weak  through  the 
flesh."  It  must  work  its  perfect  work.  We  must  feel  the 
brotherhood  of  man.  We  must  sympathize  with  the  most 
oppressed  of  the  human  family. 

The  African  has  been  despised  and  rejected  of  men,  for 
the  same  reason  that  woman  has  been.  Not  because  of  lack 
of  talent,  but  excess  of  a  submissive,  peaceful,  religious 
spirit.  Had  he  been  as  bloodthirsty  as  the  Indian,  he  would 
have  been  as  free.  His  elements  are  needed  to  make  the 
perfect  man.  He  is  the  John  of  the  Apostles,  milder  than 
the  rest,  yet  superior  to  all  of  them  in  many  of  the  highest 
traits  of  soul. 

We  may  justly  lament  the  aggressions  of  the  slave  power. 


150  CASTE   THE   CORNER-STONE 

We  may  be  surprised  at  their  open  robbery  from  the  North 
of  its  acquired  and  conceded  territories.  We  may  be  horror- 
struck  at  the  sight  of  president,  cabinet,  and  grave  sena- 
tors, hastening  to  break  obligations  as  solemn  and  reverend 
as  oaths  at  the  marriage  altar,  or  on  the  bed  of  death.  We 
may  lift  our  voice  against  these  crimes.  We  may  struggle 
manfully  to  repel  this  invading  abomination.  But  we  cannot 
expect,  we  shall  never  see,  the  complete  removal  of  this  curse 
from  our  land  until  we  stand  boldly  arid  heartily  upon  the 
divine  foundation  —  the  perfect  unity  of  the  human  race.* 

In  dragging  up  our  brother  from  this  horrible  pit  of  mire  and 
clay, — this  bottomless  pit  of  death  and  despair,  — into  which 
we  have  cast  him,  we  shall  find  ourselves  compelled  to  move 
higher  .and  higher  in  our  apprehension  and  adoption  of  the 
principle  and  obligations  of  human  brotherhood.  We  can- 
not, by  a  cord  coiled  around  our  feet,  raise  him  up  so  that  he 
shall  stand  where  we  stand,  and  no  higher  ;  but  we  must 
take  him  in  our  arms,  and  bear  him  with  us,  on  and  up  into 
all  the  light  and  liberty  with  which  God  shall  crown  our 
path.  Till  then  shall  the  nations  hear  of  our  shame.  Till 
then  our  cry  shall  fill  all  lands.  Till  then  shall,  as  now,  the 
mighty  man  stumble  against  the  mighty,  and  both  fall  to- 
gether. 

Let  us  not  turn  from  this  truth  with  loathing.  Let  us  look 
our  cruelties  in  the  face.  Let  us  look  our  duties  in  the  face. 
Let  us  look  stern  facts  in  the  face.  Over  four  millions  of 
this  people  are  here.  What  are  you  going  to  do  with  them  ? 
Send  them  to  Africa  ?  If  they  should  agree  to  go,  and 
great  ocean  steamers  carried  them  all  there,  it  would  take 
eight  thousand  such  steamers,  or  that  number  of  voyages,  to 

*  The  whole  course  of  the  war,  and  of  reconstruction  since,  is  the 
comment  on  this  declaration.  Only  as  we  advanced  to  these  truths  did 
our  cause  prosper,  and  only  when  we  "  boldly  and  heartily"  embraced 
them  did  we  triumph.  The  completion  of  this  work  and  success  yet  await 
the  Church  and  society. 


OF   AMERICAN   SLAVERY.  151 

transport  them.  They  will  never  leave  us  nor  forsake  us. 
A  handful  may  go,  as  a  few  of  us  go  to  California ;  but  the 
millions  will  stay.  Even  if  colonization  could  be  carried  out, 
it  would  not  cure  the  evil.  It  would  intensify  it.  If  every 
son  arid  daughter  of  Africa,  however  far  removed  by  Anglo- 
Saxon  intermixture  from  their  original  blood,  were  removed 
to  those  shores,  it  would  only  make  the  feeling  more  bitter. 
The  unnatural  doctrine  of  natural  distinctions  would  be  sus- 
tained, and  Christianity  would  have  no  perfect  sway  in  the 
earth.  They  must  abide  with  us  till  we  acknowledge  by 
word  and  act  that  they  are  one  with  us.  And  when  we  con- 
fess and  embrace  them  as  brothers,  we  shall  never  listen  to 
their  expatriation.  The  idea  will  be  as  abhorrent  as  the 
expulsion  of  your  own  children  from  your  arms,  or  your  wife 
from  your  bosom.  God  will  keep  them  with  us  till  He  has 
cured  us  of  our  sins.  Then  shall  we  rejoice  to  abide  with 
them  always,  and  to  build  up  a  grand  nationality  of  one  hu- 
manity, of  one  language,  having  one  Redeemer,  and  one 
future  on  earth,  and,  if  in  Christ,  forever. 

Do  you  still  ask,  What  shall  we  do  ?  You  can  do  but  one 
thing  —  your  duty — as  Christians,  as  men.  Be  honest,  be 
honorable,  feel  yourselves  one  with  these  children  of  your 
earthly  and  heavenly  Father.  Follow  Christ,  and  He  will 
guide  and  bless  you. 

Thus  shall  you  cure  the  sin  of  sins  that  so  fearfully  pos- 
sesses our  nation.  Thus  will  love  subdue  hate,  and  the 
slaveholder,  beholding  your  conquest  over  your  prejudices, 
will  approve  your  course,  and  vie  with  you  in  giving  his 
slave  that  which  is  just  and  equal.  Then  shall  we  stand 
forth  before  the  world,  a  nation  where  civil  and  social 
equality  and  fraternity,  where  the  humanity  of  man,  is  the 
passport  to  every  station. 

Purge  yourself  of  this  old  leaven,  as  Paul  had  to  purge 
himself  of  his  prejudice  against  the  Gentiles,  as  the  Athe- 
nians had  to  purge  themselves  of  their  disgust  at  his  procla- 


152  CASTE   THE   CORNER-STONE. 

mation  that  God  made  of  one  blood  all  nations  of  men,  — 
Greek  and  Barbarian,  Scythian  and  Jew,  —  a  proposition 
offensive  beyond  conception  to  those  cultivated  and  contract- 
ed spirits.  Let  us  each  see  that  we  are  without  sin  con- 
cerning our  brother.  Labor  to  make  others  equally  free 
from  prejudice,  and  equally  ready  to  build  up  on  the  solid 
foundations  of  the  Oneness  of  Man  such  a  power  as  shall 
strengthen  every  part  of  the  army  of  freedom,  and  ^hall  melt 
the  hearts  of  those  who  hold  our  brethren  in  bondage.  Then 
shall  the  cloud,  surcharged  with  thunder  and  fire,  that  is  set- 
tling down  over  those  Southern  plains,  be  lifted,  and  peaceful 
Emancipation  shall  be  proclaimed,  with  its  growing  train  of 
unspeakable  blessings,  throughout  all  the  land,  to  all  the 
inhabitants  thereof. 

Such  is  our  duty.  It  is  enough  for  us  to  know  it.  As 
said  the  Iron  Duke  to  his  clerical  inquirer,  who  asked  if  he 
ought  to  go  as  a  missionary  to  India,  "How  read  your  or- 
ders ?  "  So  should  every  soul  say,  What  is  duty  ?  If  heart 
and  flesh  revolt,  if  the  world  sneers,  and  frowns  ;  if  we  are 
doomed  to  tread  a  solitary  path  with  mocking  sons  of  Belial 
assailing  us,  God  give  us  grace  to  move  onward  and  upward 
in  the  only  way  which  will  relieve  our  land  of  its  curse,  and 
make  all  nations  see  and  acknowledge  its  glory. 

Thus  acting,  of  you,  and  to  you,  a  Voice  from  out  the  gol- 
den cloud  of  the  Divine  nature  will  sound  sweet  and  deep 
through  your  humble,  happy  soul,  — 

"  Servant  of  God,  well  done  !     Well  hast  thou  fought 
The  better  fight,  who  singly  hast  maintained 
Against  revolted  multitudes  the  cause 
Of  truth,  in  word  mightier  than  they  in  arms, 
And  for  the  testimony  of  the  truth  hast  borne 
Universal  reproach,  far  worse  to-bear 
Than  violence  ;  for  this  was  all  thy  care,  — 
To  stand  approved  in  sight  of  God,  though  worlds 
Judged  thee  perverse." 


THE   BEGINNING   OF  THE   END/ 


"  SURELY  OPPRESSION  MAKETH  A  WISE  MAN  MAD."  —  Eccl.  vii.  7. 

"  I    AM    NOT    MAD,    MOST    NOBLE    FESTUS." Ads  XXVi.  25. 

"  So  I  RETURNED,  AND  CONSIDERED  ALL  THE  OPPRESSIONS  THAT  ARE 
DONE  UNDER  THE  SUN  :  AND  BEHOLD,  THE  TEARS  OF  SUCH  AS  WERE 
OPPRESSED,  AND  THEY  HAD  NO  COMFORTER;  AND  ON  THE  SIDE  OF 
THEIR  OPPRESSORS  THERE  WAS  POWER,  BUT  THEY  HAD  NO  COMFORT- 
ER. WHEREFORE  I  PRAISED  THE  DEAD  WHICH  ARE  ALREADY  DEAD, 

MORE  THAN  THE  LIVING  AVHICII  ARE  YET  ALIVE." Ecd.  iv.   1,  2. 


NEW  act  opens  in  the  great  drama  of  the  rights 
and  destiny  of  humanity,  which  is  now  being  per- 
formed by  this  nation,  in  the  presence  of  an  aston- 
ished world.  It  opens  with  a  sound  of  war,  a  cry 
for  blood.  Is  it  the  last  act  of  the  tragedy,  when  deaths 
are.  frequent ;  where  the  innocent  first  fall,  the  wicked  follow; 
or  is  it  but  a  slight  interruption  to  the  former  movement, 
and  without  effect  on  that  which  shall  come  after  ?  Let  us 
consider  it  in  the  sacred  light  that  falls  upon  us  from  Heaven. 
Let  us  dwell  upon  it  in  no  frivolous  spirit,  but  in  deep 
solemnity. 

*  A  sermon  preached  at  Harvard  Street  Methodist  Episcopal  Church, 
Cambridge,  November  6,  1859,  on  the  occasion  of  the  capture  at  Har- 
per's Ferry  of  Captain  John  Brown  and  his  associates.  See  Note  VII. 

(153) 


154  THE   BEGINNING   OF   THE   END. 

"  Things  now, 

That  bear  a  weighty  and  a  serious  brow, 
Sad,  high,  and  working,  full  of  state  and  woe, 
Such  noble  scenes  as  draw  the  eye  to  flow, 
We  now  present." 

Let  us  keep  before  us  the  great  fact  —  the  violent  en- 
slavement of  forty  hundreds  of  thousands  of  our  kindred  in 
the  flesh  and  in  the  Lord,  in  Adam  and  in  Christ.  Let  us 
not  forget  what  this  system  is  and  does  ;  how  it  thrusts  its 
miscreated  front  athwart  the  path  of  all  national  and  religious 
progress,  breaks  churches  to  pieces,  rules  and  ruins  great 
Christian  charities  ;  and  above,  beyond  all  this,  sets  its 
satanic  foot  on  man,  created  in  the  image  of  God,  crushes 
out  his  freedom,  his  culture,  his  piety,  his  every  God-given 
right  and  privilege.  Connect  with  this  defiant,  triumphant 
on-marching  institution  of  perdition  this  little  act  of  a  score 
of  men,  and  see  if,  and  how,  such  a  small  stone  can  indeed 
sink  into  the  forehead  of  the  mighty  Goliath  and  smite  him 
to  the  dust.  And  may  God  help  us  to  speak  and  hear  in 
all  sincerity  and  godly  fear. 

You  all  know  the  published  history  of  the  transaction. 
About  twenty  men,  led  by  one  before  famous,  now  immortal, 
seized  a  few  slaveholders,  and  a  United  States  arsenal, 
delivered  a  few  score  of  slaves,  were  taken,  most  of  the 
number  instantly  killed,  a  few  captured,  their  leader  tried, 
condemned,  and  sentenced  to  be  hanged.  That  is  all.  How 
can  this,  you  may  say,  be  the  beginning  of  the  end  of 
American  Slavery  ?  A  glance  at  the  excitement  it  has 
created  may  guide  you  to  a  perception  of  this  great  fact. 

Not  less  than  three  orations  upon  it  were  published  in 
the  papers  of  last  week  ;  every  journal  has  abounded  with 
editorials  upon  it  ^  every  political  speech  has  been  burdened 
with  attempts  to  fasten  it  upon  their  opponents  and  ward  it 
off  from  themselves.  Within  a  month,  ten  thousand  thanks- 
giving sermons  will  dwell  upon  its  lessons.  Every  ear  and 


HARPER'S   FERRY.  155 

tongue,  from  Galveston  to  Eastport,  is  on  fire  for  every  item 
pertaining  to  it.  Never  has  any  single  evejit  in  our  annals 
so  enthralled  the  whole  nation.  The  court  of  justice  in- 
stantly takes  up  the  wondrous  tale.  With  an  astounding 
speed  it  connects  itself  with  the  moans  of  the  wounded  and 
bereaved,  drags  its  bleeding  prisoners  to  its  bar,  refuses  all 
demands  for  needed  and  brief  delay,  heeds  no  claim  of  judi- 
cial impartiality,  driving  its  deadly  business  at  this  fearful 
rate,  and  only  breathing  freely  when  it  has  pronounced  over 
the  doomed  gray  head  the  sentence  of  death.  Nay,  it  does 
not  breathe  freely  yet.  He  is  in  prison,  and  the  centurion 
and  his  band  keep  watch  day  and  night  over  him,  lest  his 
friends  come  and  steal  him  away,  and  the  last  error  be  worse 
than  the  first.  Whether  released  or  hung,  his  influence  has 
but  just  begun.  If  dead,  he  will  speak  as  no  dead  have 
spoken  in  this  land,  since  Warren  fell  asleep  in  his  bloody 
shroud.  If  alive  and  in  prison,  to  no  walls  will  such  a  mul- 
titude of  earnest  eyes  be  aimed  as  to  those  that  shut  him  in. 
If  at  liberty,  his  steps  will  be  followed  by  myriads  of  sym- 
pathizing friends  or  curious  foes. 

What  does  all  this  mean  ?  What  does  it  portend  ?  Is 
it  simply  the  excitement  of  politics,  which  periodically  ebbs 
and  flows  ?  Politicians  may  seek  to  use  and  abuse  it ;  but 
the  feeling  that  produced  it,  and  that  it  has  produced,  is 
vastly  greater  than  any  they  can  create  or  control.  Theirs 
is  but  the  tiny  vessel,  —  Great  Eastern  though  it  be,  —  this 
is  of  the  mighty  upheaval  of  the  ocean  underneath.  The 
vessel  may  reach  its  desired  haven,  or  go  down  among 
the  billows  it  has  sought  to  ride  ;  the  waves  sweep  on, 
under  the  laws  of  their  Creator,  to  the  goal  He  has  set 
for  them.  Is  it  the  ordinary  excitement  over  a  murderous 
riot  ?  Other  riots  are  constantly  occurring.  One  has  tran- 
spired since  this  event,  by  which  several  men  were  killed 
and  wounded,  and  a  great  city  surrendered  to  a  lawless 
mob  ;  and  yet  a  brief  telegram  satisfies  the  general  hunger 
for  the  bloody  feast. 


156  THE   BEGINNING   OF   THE   END. 

Why  this  difference  ?  Because  the  one  is  exceptional, 
transient,  easily  and  palpably  curable  ;  the  other  connects 
itself  with  the  great  iniquity  that  covers  half,  and  darkens 
all  the  land.  It  is  the  first  blow  that  gigantic  power  ever 
felt.  It  is  a  blow  from  which  it  cannot  recover.  How  is 
this  the  case  ?  How  can  this  brief,  and  apparently  unsuc- 
cessful, act  be  considered  as  the  beginning  of  that  long- 
prayed  for — we  can  hardly  say,  long  looked-for  hour,  the 
death  of  Slavery  ?  For  two  reasons  :  — 

I.  1.  It  has  taught  the  slaveholders  their  weakness.  Never 
has  such  trembling  shaken  their  knees  before.  Never  has 
such  a  thrill  of  horror  made  so  many  great  States  to  quake. 
Over  fifteen  States,  over  a  million  of  square  miles,  there  has 
run  one  feeling,  one  fear,  one  Belshazzar  sense  of  awful 
guilt,  and  awful  weakness,  and  awful  punishment.  That 
handwriting  on  the  wall  of  the  great  Southern  palace  of 
pleasure  needed  no  slave  prophet,  like  Daniel,  to  interpret  it. 
They  understood  its  meaning ;  they  feared  its  instant  accom- 
plishment. Their  action,  or  want  of  action,  in  this  conflict, 
has  placed  them  before  the  world  as  totally  incapable  of 
defending  themselves  against  any  moderately  well-devised 
and  well-executed  rising  of  the  slaves.  Had  John  Brown 
been  half  as  successful  as  he  anticipated,  had  but  five  hun- 
dred slaves  joined  him  there,  he  could  have  marched  to  New 
Orleans,  freeing  all  the  slaves  on  his  way,  for  all  the  slave- 
holders could  have  done  to  stop  him.  His  folly  appears  to 
be,  not  in  counting  on  the  weakness  of  the  South,  but  in 
neglecting  to  count  on  the  strength  of  the  Federal  arm. 

Well  may  they  tremble.  They  are  but  men  —  men  most 
guilty,  and  therefore  most  weak.  We  who  are  so  free  with 
our  gibes,  would  be  palsied  with  equal  horror  and  faintness, 
if  we  stood  on  the  same  rocking  and  cleaving  soil,  over  the 
same  mine  which  we  had  wickedly  filled  with  deadly  explo- 
sives, as  we  saw  the  torch  approaching  it. 

"  Thua  conscience  doth  make  cowards  of  us  all." 


HARPER'S   FERRY.  157 

Suppose  you  had  stolen  a  man's  wages  from  his  youth,  had 
trampled  out  his  manhood,  beat  him  often  and  cruelly,  robbed 
him  of  his  wife  and  children  and  sold  them  from  his  arms,  — 
how  would  you  feel  if  you  saw,  or  dreamed  you  saw,  that 
man  stand  before  you,  rifle  in  hand,  demanding  his  freedom? 
This  is  their  condition.  They  slept  but  little  before,  they 
will  sleep  less  now.  The  planters  in  the  vicinity  of  the 
outbreak  dare  not  spend  the  night  on  their  plantations.  They 
flee  when  no  man  pursueth.  Let  us  not  revile  them.  Let  us 
with  larger,  and  so  tenderer,  heart  lament  their  state,  while 
we  call  them,  by  these  fears,  to  repentance.  They  may  thus 
be  led  thither.  The  terrors  of  the  Lord  have  persuaded 
multitudes  of  men  to  be  holy.  God  surrounds  all  His  laws 
with  great  punishments,  so  that  those  who  will  not  be  led 
by  love  may  be  driven  by  fear.  May  we  not  hope  that  this 
sense  of  helplessness,  and  dread  of  the  just  vengeance  of 
their  oppressed  brethren,  will  persuade  them  to  give  them 
that  which  is  just  and  equal  ? 

Had  Pharaoh  hearkened  to  his  fears,  he  would  have  eman- 
cipated his  bondmen  before  the  great  wrath  of  God  fell  so 
awfully  upon  him.  So,  if  these  Pharaohs,  who  have  so  long 
combined  against  the  Lord  and  against  His  children,  will 
but  heed  these  feelings  of  danger  and  powerlessness  that 
their  loving  Creator  has  given  them,  as  warnings  and  incen- 
tives to  duty,  they  will  instantly  inaugurate  the  work  of 
emancipation. 

Mr.  Thackeray  has  said  that  Great  Britain,  in  the  Revo- 
lution, never  overcame  the  influence  of  Bunker's  Hill.  Much 
less  will  the  slaveholders  overcome  Harper's  Ferry.  Whether 
bloodier  outbreaks  follow,  or  more  peaceful  counsels  prevail, 
be  assured  that  the  lessons  of  this  hour  will  not  be  lost  on 
them.  They  may,  for  a  season,  wear  the  bold  face  they 
have  borne  so  long.  They  may  still  utter  great  swelling 
words  of  vanity,  and  defy  the  armies  and  the  truths  of  the 
living  God,  but  their  hearts  are  moved  out  of  their  place ; 


158  THE   BEGINNING   OF   THE   END. 

there  is  no  strength  in  them.  The  march  of  the  cause  of 
emancipation  is  far  from  being  stayed  by  this  affair.  Crazy, 
and  broken  with  age  and  grief,  as  everybody  seems  so 
anxious  to  paint  the  leader  of  this  band,  that  they  may 
defend  themselves  from  all  complicity  in  his  plans,  he  has 
taught  the  haughty  South  what  she  cannot,  dare  not  forget. 
His  apparition  will  undoubtedly  incite  them'  to  the  work 
God  will  yet  perform  through  them,  or  over  them. 

2.  The  second  reason  for  considering  this  the  begin- 
ning of  the  end  of  this  accursed  crime  against  God  and 
man,  is  the  confidence  it  will  breathe  into  the  slave.  If 
England  never  forgot  Bunker's  Hill,  much  more  America 
never  did.  The  sight  of  the  falling  or  fleeing  forms  of  their 
arrayed  oppressors,  on  that  memorable  day,  never  lost  its 
tremendous  power  over  their  hearts.  So  the  millions  of  the 
enslaved  will  never  forget  the  dismay,  which  turned  the 
hearts  of  their  masters  to  water,  at  the  first  gleaming  of 
the  rifle,  the  first  stern  demand  for  Freedom.  Harper's 
Ferry  is  the  turning-point  in  their  history.  Though  they 
responded  but  feebly,  though  they  have  maintained  a  most 
wonderful  silence  since,  though  they  seem  to  be  the  only 
cool  men  in  the  whole  country,  excepting  their  would-be 
deliverer,  still  they  are  not  feelingless,  they  are  not  thought- 
less. We  sneer  at  them  because  they  did  not  avail  them- 
selves of  this  opportunity,  at  the  same  time  that  we  brand 
Captain  Brown  with  insanity  for  offering  it  to  them.  Wiser 
thoughts  will  find  less  fault  with  both  parties.  The  slaves 
are  men.  As  one  born  to  that  fate  said,  centuries  ago, 
amid  the  applause  of  a  vast  theater  of  slaveholders,  "  I 
am  a  man  ;  nothing  human  is  foreign  from  me."  *  They  are 
but  men,  and,  therefore,  like  all  the  white  races,  however 
much  they  may  say  they  prefer  liberty  to  death,  they  will 
want  some  well-grounded  hope  of  obtaining  that  liberty 
before  they  imperil  their  lives.  See  Hungary  to-day,  rest- 

*  Terence  was  a  slave  in  Rome. 


HARPER'S   FERRY.  159 

less  yet  warless,  in  the  talons  of  Austria ;  Rome,  under  the 
cloven  hoof  of  the  pope  ;  France,  in  the  clutch  of  Napoleon. 
Our  slave  brethren  are  of  like  passions  with  ourselves.  They 
have  acted  wisely  ;  they  bide  their  time  ;  it  will  come. 

This  great  deed,  as  it  must  and  ought  to  appear  in  their 
eyes,  will  be  talked  of  in  every  cabin.  The  underground 
telegraph  will  carry  the  tidings  where  no  underground  rail- 
road yet  runs  its  blessed  trains  of  liberty.  The  two  chief 
features  of  the  event  —  the  interposition  of  Northern  white 
men  for  their  deliverance,  the  ghastly  fright  and  feebleness 
of  their  masters  —  will  leave  an  indelible  impress  on  their 
hearts.  Their  consciousness  of  their  rights  as  men  will 
grow  mightily  under  the  influence  of  the  fact  that  those  of 
the  same  race  as  their  oppressors  are  willing  to  die,  if  need 
be,  for  their  redemption.  The  consciousness  of  their  strength 
will  grow  with  equal  rapidity,  when  they  see  thousands  of 
these  armed  masters  trembling  before  a  dozen  wounded  and 
imprisoned  men,  and  compelled,  by  their  fears,  to  let  a 
handful  of  troops,  mostly  foreigners,  win  their  battles. 

You  may  say,  Is  not  all  this  wrong  ?  Has  the  slave  any 
right  to  demand  his  freedom  ?  We  are  not  now  defending 
theories,  we  are  only  stating  facts.  We  are  showing  the 
grounds  for  our  belief  that  this  movement  is  to  hasten  the  glad 
day  of  universal  emancipation.  Yet  we  do  not  shrink  from 
answering  the  question.  The  slave  has  a  right  to  demand  his 
freedom.  They  have  a  right  to  unite  in  this  demand.  They 
have  a  right  to  fight  for  it  if  it  is  refused  them.  It  is  not 
their  uprising  that  is  to  be  condemned  —  it  is  the  resistance 
to  that  uprising.  It  is  the  master,  throttling  the  slave,  and 
thrusting  him  into  a  bloody  grave,  if  he  dare  say,.  "I  will 
be  free  !  "  that  is  the  great  criminal  before  God  and  man  ; 
not  the  slave,  claiming  to  exercise  his  inherent  and  inalien- 
able rights,  and  resisting  all  who  oppose  him. 

Can  you  find  fault  with  this,  you,  whose  government  is 
based  on  that  great  sentence  wrought  out  in  the  fires  of  a 


160  THE   BEGINNING   OF   THE   END. 

fierce  rebellion,  "  All  men  are  created  free  and  equal  "  ? 
You,  whose  highest  boast  is,  that  you  descend  from  revolu- 
tionary fathers,  whose  greatest  holiday  is  that  whereon  they 
proclaimed  their  independence  from  an  ancient  but  unjust 
power,  whose  whole  creed,  of  whatever  party  —  Democratic, 
American,  or  Republican  —  is,  "All  government  must  be 
based  on  the  consent  of  the  governed  "  ?  "  Who  is  blind, 
like  my  servant,  or  deaf,  as  the  messenger  I  have  sent  ? " 
You  do  not  shrink  from  applying  your  formula  to  Italy,  to 
France,  to  Ireland,  everywhere,  save  to  your  own  coun- 
trymen, whose  fathers  were  as  valiant  as  ours,  in  that  in- 
surrection against  Britain. 

But  we  dare  not  say  that  wicked  thing,  and  sin  against 
God.  We  dare  not  affirm  that  any  child  of  Adam,  any  child 
of  God,  has  not  the  same  right  to  himself  that  we  have  ;  and 
if  he  can  secure  it  without  bloodshed,  has  a  right  to  take  it. 
If  he  can  obtain  it  only  by  bloodshed,  it  is  not  for  us,  with 
our  ceaseless  praises  of  Kossuth,  and  Garibaldi,  and  Wash- 
ington, to  say  him  nay.*  God  help  him  to  his  rights  without 
the  shedding  of  a  drop  of  human  blood  !  God  help  him  to 
his  rights,  even  if,  like  Israel,  He  shall  see  fit  to  have  him 
thrust  into  freedom  by  the  terror-stricken,  sorrow-stricken 
masters;  made  so  now,  as  then,  by  the  Angel  Jehovah,  the 
Lord  Jesus  Christ  himself. 

There  will  be  no  such  redemption,  for  the  slave  has  no 
thirst  for  revenge.  Vast  and  numerous  as  are  the  tempta- 
tions to  it,  no  such  cry  has  ever  leaped  in  his  soul,  much 
less  from  his  tongue.  Some  there  may  be,  of  the  many 
Legrees,  that  may  have  commended  to  their  lips  the  chalice 
of  agony  they  have  so  foully  forced  upon  their  brethren. 
But  these  revenges  will  be  rare.  No  such  design  moves 
the  hearts  of  their  sympathizers.  lie  who  has  gone  furthest 

*  Are  not  our  eulogies,  and  statues,  and  monuments  of  Washington, 
—  the  peculiar  fashion  of  our  time,  —  designed  by  Providence  to  prepare 
us  to  welcome  that  greater  than  Washington,  who  may  yet  arise  to  lead 
the  oppressed  race  to  Freedom  ? 


HARPER'S   FERRY.  161 

in  this  work  of  neighborly  love  and  duty,  expressly  and 
repeatedly  denies  the  intention  of  creating  or  allowing  a 
bloody  insurrection.  "  I  never  did  intend,"  he  says,  "  mur- 
der or  treason,  or  the  destruction  of  property,  or  to  excite 
or  incite  the  slaves  to  rebellion,  or  to  make  insurrection.  I 
never  encouraged  any  man  to  do  so,  but  always  discouraged 
any  idea  of  that  kind."  Let  us  refrain  from  charging  these 
dead  and  dying  men,  who  have  sacrificed  their  lives  for  the 
freedom  of  a  despised  people,  with  any  such  imputation. 
Let  us  rejoice  that  other  human  agents  are  in  this  work 
beside  Pharaoh  and  his  bondmen,  and  that  their  external 
sympathies  and  energies  will  peacefully  melt  the  iron  from 
these  necks. 

We  have  only  said  that,  in  the  dread  alternative  of  free- 
dom through  blood  or  perpetual  slavery,  we  have  no  right, 
as  men  or  as  Christians,  to  decide  for  the  latter.  For  con- 
sider, that  one  quarter  of  a  million  hold  four  millions  of 
innocent  people  in  chains.  By  our  American  arithmetic  the 
majority  rules.  Apply  the  rule  here,  and  let  it  peaceably 
work  itself  out.  If  violence  attend  its  working,  ask  your- 
self which  is  the  better  —  the  short  but  fierce  conflict  of 
sixteen  men,  with  their  one  pretended  owner,  or  the  violent 
subjugation  to  the  master  of  those  sixteen,  and  their  pos- 
terity. On  the  one  hand,  some  masters  slain,  some  matrons 
dishonored,  some  falsely  rich  made  poor,  and  then  liberty, 
equality,  fraternity  in  all  generations  ;  no  chains,  no  whips, 
no  pollution,  no  unconsecrated  marriages  of  lovers,  no  separa- 
tion of  families,  no  robbery  of  a  man's  labor  and  its  rewards, 
of  all  chances  of  elevation,  socially  and  mentally,  of  all  the 
rights  which  all  men  respect  and  strive  after.  On  the  other 
hand,  generations  upon  generations  of  these  millions  suffer- 
ing unspeakable  loss,  and  shames,  and  agonies.  There  may 
be  no  war  nor  bloodshed,  thanks  to  the  great  Northern,  the 
great  Christian  sentiment ;  but  if  there  shall  be,  God  has 
often  blessed  it,  and  will  again. 
11 


162  THE   BEGINNING   OF   THE   END. 

II.  This  event  will  lead  to  a  more  general  recognition  of 
our  oneness  of  blood  and  destiny  with  the  despised  race. 
The  past  movements  of  this  reform  have  made  astonishing 
changes  in  the  Northern  feeling.  The  colored  race  to-day 
are  treated  with  a  thousand-fold  more  respect  and  fraternal 
familiarity  than  they  were  twenty  years  ago.  Yet  there 
remains  much  to  be  done.  Our  walls  of  prejudice  still  rise 
high  between  us  and  them.  We  must  tear  them  down.  We 
must  cease  separating  them  from  us  in  our  churches  —  per- 
petuating, under  another  form,  the  negro-pew  abomination 
of  our  fathers.  We  must  open  the  doors  of  our  schools  and 
colleges  to  them,  not  only  as  scholars,  but  as  teachers,  if 
they  show  themselves  capable.  We  must  let  them  enter 
our  shops  as  apprentices,  our  stores  as  clerks,  our  firms  as 
partners.  We  must  open  the  doors  of  all  our  varied  de- 
partments of  human  enterprise,  and  say  to  them,  "  Show 
yourselves  capable,  we  will  show  ourselves  liberal."  How 
high  the  walls  that  now  hem  them  in  !  how  narrow  and 
poor  the  soil  they  are  permitted  to  cultivate  !  The  lightest 
quadroon,  no  less  than  his  darkest  kindred,  is  confined  within 
the  range  of  one  or  two  modes  of  industry,  and  they  the 
least  intelligent  and  remunerative.  I  heard  a  worthy  lady 
say,  not  long  since,  she  might  allow  one  of  this  class  to 
work  in  her  kitchen  ;  she  would  revolt  from  letting  her  sew 
for  her.  However  light  in  hue,  however  neat  and  nimble 
in  this  most  womanly  of  accomplishments,  she  could  not 
avail  herself  of  it  to  get  a  living  in  that  family.  Could  she 
in  yours  ?  We  must  crucify  this  lust  of  pride  and  caste, 
if  we  would  be  the  friends  of  Christ,  if  we  would  deal  truly 
and  justly  with  the  slave  and  his  master. 

No  one  act  in  the  whole  movement,  thus  far,  can  contrib- 
ute to  this  end  what  the  deeds  done  and  suffered  by  John 
Brown  and  his  associates  will  do.  That  sublime  speech, 
on  receiving  his  sentence,  so  manly,  so  womanly,  so  full  of 
generosity  and  frankness,  full  of  modesty  and  courage,  has 


HAEPER'S   FERRY.  163 

a  few  sentences  that,  with  the  deeds  that  accompany  them, 
will  be  living  forces  for  the  cleansing  of  this  nation  from 
the  base  prejudices  that  now  infect  it.  Hear  him,  and  let  his 
words  work  their  perfect  work  in  all  your  hearts  :  "  Had  I 
interfered  in  the  manner  which  I  admit,  and  which  I  admit 
has  been  fairly  proved,  —  for  I  admire  the  truthfulness  and 
candor  of  the  greater  portion  of  the  witnesses  who  have 
testified  in  this  case,  —  had  I  so  interfered  in  behalf  of  the 
rich,  the  powerful,  the  intelligent,  the  so-called  great,  or  in 
behalf  of  any  of  their  friends,  either  father,  mother,  brother, 
sister,  wife,  or  children,  or  any  of  that  class,  and  suffered 
and  sacrificed  what  I  have  in  this  interference,  it  would  have 
been  all  right,  and  every  man  in  this  court  would  have 
deemed  it  an  act  worthy  of  reward,  rather  than  punishment. 
This  court  acknowledges,  too,  as  I  suppose,  the  validity  of 
the  law  of  God.  I  see  a  book  kissed,  which  I  suppose  to 
be  the  Bible,  or  at  least  the  New  Testament,  which  teaches 
me  that  all  things  whatsoever  I  would  that  men  should  do 
to  me,  I  should  do  even  so  to  them.  It  teaches  me  further 
to  remember  them  that  are  in  bonds  as  bound  with  them. 
I  endeavored  to  act  up  to  that  instruction.  I  say  I  am  yet 
too  young  to  understand  that  God  is  any  respecter  of  per- 
sons. I  believe  that  to  have  interfered  as  I  have  done,  — 
as  I  have  always  freely  admitted  I  have  done,  —  I  have 
done  in  behalf  of  his  despised  poor  no  wrong,  but  right." 

III.  Another  benefit  is  the  new  life  it  will  give  to  the  varied 
modes  which  have  long  been  at  work  against  this  wrong. 
Had  it  not  been  for  their  previous  activity,  it  would  have 
been  utterly  powerless  for  good  or  evil.  Twenty-five  years 
ago  such  an  act  would  have  created  no  general  uproar. 
The  slave  power  was  too  strong,  the  anti-slave  power  too 
weak.  It  is  far  different  now.  The  speeches,  and  sermons, 
and  editorials,  and  votes,  and  prayers  of  a  quarter  of  a 
century  have  not  been  without  their  effect.  The  quickening 
of  the  moral  sense  of  the  nation,  the  increase  of  sympathy 


164  THE   BEGINNING   OF   THE   END. 

and  fraternity  with  the  oppressed,  the  collisions  of  churches 
and  parties,  the  very  fierceness  of  the  wrath  of  the  slave- 
holder, have  all  been  as  fuel  preparing  for  this  spark.  The 
quenching  of  this  spark  will  not  cause  the  work  to  cease. 
It  will  go  on  as  never  before.  Not  arraying  the  North 
against  the  South,  but  the  whole  nation,  North  and  South, 
against  this  sin.  The  end  is  at  hand.  Let  us  not  be  weary 
in  well  doing  until  that  end  is  reached.  However  hostile  to 
this  work  this  enterprise  first  appeared,  new  light  is  breaking 
upon  the  general  mind.  The  party  journals  that  fancied 
their  party  aims  were  ruined  are  gaining  their  better  reason. 
Let  every  right  way  of  assailing  the  trembling  fortress  not 
cease  because  of  this  diversion.  They  will  not.  The  fires 
of  Freedom  will  burn  the  brighter,  for  that  which  seemed 
to  quench  the  flame  is  but  fuel.  The  peaceful  triumph  must 
be  hastened  by  the  very  failure  of  any  scheme  which  seems 
to  be  infected  with  war. 

IV.  This  will  not  be  the  least  beneficial  in  stilling  the 
haughty  and  horrible  assumptions  of  the  leaders  and  man- 
agers of  the  Slavocracy.  They  have  preached  doctrines 
from  the  stump,  the  hall  of  legislation,  the  pulpit,  the  bench, 
during  the  last  ten  years,  more  blasphemous,  more  satanic 
than  any  that  have  been  uttered  in  the  civilized  world  since 
Christianity  overthrew  Paganism.  No  bull  of  the  Vatican 
in  the  midnight  point  of  the  dark  ages,  no  Torquemada 
defense  of  the  Inquisition,  ever  made  half  so  ungodly  apol- 
ogies, or  announced  half  so  demoniacal  decrees,  as  the 
Southern  press  and  pulpit  have  done  in  the  last  decade  ; 
and  they  were  waxing  worse  and  worse.  A  slave  code  for 
the  territories,  slave  trade  for  their  harbors,  slave  transpor- 
tation over  the  whole  country,  —  this  is  their  avowed  pro- 
gramme. Their  strides  have  been  rapid  and  vast ;  their 
steps  are  raised  for  mightier  paces.  This  infernal  march  — 
I  speak  soberly  and  solemnly — this  tramp  of  men,  possessed 
by  him  whose  name  is  Legion,  over  all  human  and  divine 


HARPFR'S   FERRY.  165 

law  and  life,  has  suddenly  been  made  to  halt.  They  have 
seen  the  Angel  of  the  Lord;  they  are  pale  and  piteous  ;  they 
cry  for  quarter,  though  His  sword  has  not  left  His  thigh. 
Where,  now,  is  your  senatorial  imperiousness  ?  Where 
your  judicial  perversions  of  law  and  history  ?  Where  your 
executive  hauteur  ?  Their  demands,  decisions,  decrees, 
suddenly  cease.  They  will  revive  them  again,  but  with 
bated  breath.  Outwardly  they  may  be  more  vociferous  and 
abominable,  but  inwardly  they  fear,  and  whisper,  "  See 
there  !  that  strange,  awful  sight ;  how  it  burns  our  eyeballs  ! 
Northern  whites  as  mad  for  Freedom  as  we  are  for  Slavery. 
Made  so  by  us,  they  are  adopting  our  tactics  and  our  weap- 
ons. As  we  have  murdered  men  for  Slavery  in  Kansas, 
as  we  have  struck  down  great  and  high  defenders  of  Free- 
dom and  the  Constitution  in  the  Senate  House,  so  they  are 
murdering  us  in  the  cause  of  Liberty  ;  they  are  arming  our 
slaves  for  their  freedom.  We  shall  lose  our  lives,  perhaps  ; 
we  shall  certainly  lose  our  property  and  our  power."  They 
see  in  this  more  than  votes,  more  than  the  triumph  of  any 
political  party ;  they  see  the  death  of  Slavery.  They  see 
themselves  the  murderers  ;  the  favorite  offspring  of  their  lust 
of  pride,  and  power,  and  wealth  dies  by  their  own  hands. 
Well  may  we  say  to  them,  as  our  prophet  bard  of  Freedom 
did  to  their  great  leader,  Calhoun,  years  ago,  when  a  less 
fright  congealed  his  soul,  — 

"Are  these  your  tones,  whose  treble  notes  of  fear 
Wail  in  the  wind  ?     And  do  ye  shake  to  hear, 
Actaeon-like,  the  bay  of  your  own  hounds, 
Spurning  the  leash  and  leaping  o'er  their  bounds  ? 
Sore  baffled  statesmen,  when  your  eager  hand, 
With  game  afoot,  unslipped  the  hungry  pack, 
To  hunt  down  Freedom  in  her  chosen  land, 
Had  ye  no  fears  that,  ere  long,  doubling  back, 
These  dogs  of  yours  might  snuff  on  Slavery's  track  ?  " 

Let  their  proud  knees  quake.  They  ought  to  fall  before 
their  slaves  with  cries  of  forgiveness  for  their  inhuman  con- 


166  THE   BEGINNING   OF   THE   END. 

duct  towards  them  ;  before  their  country,  asking  her  pardon 
for  the  dishonor  with  -which  they  have  stained  her  fair  fame 
before  the  world  ;  and,  above  all,  before  their  God,  implor- 
ing His  mercy  for  their  false  and  cruel  treatment  of  His 
truth  and  children.  This  little  event  will  be  magnified  by 
them  a  thousand-fold  ;  yet,  perhaps,  not  too  highly.  May 
it  lead  them  to  instant  penitence,  and  its  all-important  work. 
If  I  speak  aught  that  offends  your  present  judgment, 
weigh  it  carefully  before  you  reject  it.  I  declare  only  what 
I  have  thought,  and  prayed,  and  spoken  for  years.  I  be- 
lieve no  such  sin  is  laid  at  the  door  of  any  nation  as  is  laid 
upon  us.  I  believe  no  such  sufferings  are  seen  by  the  all- 
loving  Omniscience  in  the  wide  earth,  as  He  sees  in  the 
breasts  of  multitudes  of  powerless  victims  in  the  Southern 
shambles.  I  speak  in  the  interest  of  no  party.  Politics  are 
tossed  on  this  wild  and  mighty  sea  that  sweeps  over  the 
whole  land,  as  fishing  boats  off  Newfoundland,  — 

"  When  descends  on  the  Atlantic 
The  gigantic 
Storm  wind  of  the  equinox." 

So  are  rocking  all  other  great  interests.  The  Church 
fears  her  dissolution ;  free  labor,  in  its  grand  and  lesser 
divisions,  fears  her  destruction  ;  the  throes  of  this  great 
birth  of  freedom  and  fraternity  to  the  least  among  the  races 
of  men,  make  all  classes  and  callings  to  writhe.  Yet  there 
shall  be  no  death  of  any  vital  force.  Government,  Religion, 
the  Church,  the  Gospel,  free  and  varied  industry,  all  shall 
live,  and  live  a  higher  life  for  the  struggles  through  which 
they  are  now  passing.  I  speak  with  no  hardness  to  the 
slaveholder.  Some  of  these  that  I  know,  I  esteem.  All 
God  has  loved,  and  has  given  His  only-beloved  Son,  that 
they,  believing  on  Him,  might  not  perish.  May  they  re- 
ceive the  grace  of  God  in  its  fullness,  and  let  it  lead  them 
to  give  that  which  is  just  and  equal  to  the  slave,  lest  "the 
great  and  terrible  day  of  the  Lord  come."  Would  to  God 


HARPER'S   FERRY.  167 

they  would  treat  their  fellow-citizens  in  bondage  as  our 
fathers  treated  theirs  —  declare  Slavery  incompatible  with 
their  Constitutions,  and  that  it  ceases  henceforth  to  exist 
in  their  midst.  So  easy,  so  peaceful  is  the  way  of  duty  in 
this  matter. 

I  speak  in  no  love  or  expectation  of  a  murderous  upris- 
ing, or  of  armed  intervention  to  aid  them  in  rising.  Their 
rights  I  have  defended.  Their  duty  it  is  not  for  me  to 
decide.  I  have  striven  to  remember  them  as  bound  with 
them.  I  see  them  as  they  are  to-day,  sitting  under  vines 
and  fig  trees  not  their  own,  with  everything  to  molest  and 
make  them  afraid.  I  see  them,  as  they  are  plodding  in 
coffles,  or  crowded  in  holds,  on  their  dreadful  march  to  their 
unknown  fate.  With  bleeding  feet,  and  backs,  and  hearts, 
they  are  scourged  from  the  miserable  hut  of  their  childhood, 
to  the  miserable  grave  of  their  early  prime,  from  the  dun- 
geon of  ice  to  the  dungeon  of  fire.  "  They  have  no  rights," 
says  the  solemn  and  supreme  tribunal  of  the  land,  "  no  rights 
which  white  men  are  bound  to  respect."  The  husband  has 
no  right  to  his  wife,  which  you  are  bound  to  respect ;  the 
maiden  no  right  to  her  honor ;  the  mother  no  right  to  her 
babe,  the  babe  no  right  to  its  mother  ;  the  mind  no  right  to 
culture  ;  the  soul  no  right  to  its  Savior ;  no  rights  which 
white  men  are  bound  to  respect !  My  God,  what  a  decree  ! 
Let  us  obey  God  rather  than  man,  and  hold  in  higher  re- 
spect their  natural  and  divine  rights,  for  the  very  contempt 
and  loss  they  suffer  at  the  hands  of  those  now  so  powerful 
and  so  cruel. 

Let  us  not  be  discouraged.  This  deluge  of  hell  has  heard 
a  voice  it  will  obey,  saying,  "  Hitherto  shalt  thou  come, 
but  no  further,  and  here  shall  thy  proud  waves  be  stayed." 
The  very  dilemma  of  the  captors  of  these  men  is  itself  pro- 
•pitious.  They  dare  not  hang  them  ;  they  dare  not  release 
them.  If  they  pardon  John  Brown,  it  is  saying  to  all  the 
world,  "  We  are  verily  guilty.  Any  man  may  come  among 


168  THE   BEGINNING   OF   THE   END. 

us,  invite  our  slaves  to  assume  their  freedom,  give  them  arms 
to  defend  that  freedom,  and  even  slay  those  who  seem  to 
oppose  it,  and  yet  we  dare  not  hang  him.  Why  ?  Because 
we  know  he  is  right,  and  we  are  wrong."  They  can  never 
defend  their  system  again  if  John  Brown  is  allowed  to  live. 

If  he  dies,  if  he 'mounts  the  scaffold  for  Freedom,  which 
may  Heaven  prevent,  he  will  slay  the  monster  which  seems 
thus  to  slay  him.  He  will  make  the  scaffold  in  this  land  as 
sacred  and  potent  as  it  became  in  England  when  Vane,  and 
Sidney,  and  Eussell  mounted  it.  Such  a  thrill  of  indigna- 
tion and  remorse  will  freeze  the  soul  of  every  man,  North 
and  South,  slaveholder  and  abolitionist,  as  never  struck 
through  the  heart  of  a  great  Christian  nation  before.  Let 
John  Brown's  great  words  be  fulfilled :  "Now,  if  it  is  deemed 
necessary  that  I  should  forfeit  my  life  for  the  furtherance  of 
the  ends  of  justice,  and  mingle  my  blood  further  with  the 
blood  of  my  children,  and  with  the  blood  of  millions  in  this 
slave  country  whose  rights  are  disregarded  by  wicked,  cruel, 
and  unjust  enactments,  I  say,  let  it  be  done." 

Out  of  that  death  life  will  leap  :  life  for  those  miserable 
millions  now  worse  than  dead.  To  his  memory  honors  will 
be  paid  ;  statues  will  bear  his  stern,  mild  features  to  pos- 
terity;  and  when  Virginia  is  free, —  as  free  she  will  be, —  one 
of  her  first  acts  will  be  to  erect  a  monument  to  his  memory, 
on  the  very  spot  where  disgrace,  defeat,  and  death  now  over- 
whelm him  —  as  one  of  the  first  acts  of  this  Commonwealth, 
after  she  had  achieved  her  liberty,  was  to  raise  the  lofty 
memorial  to  the  "  monomaniac  "  Warren,  and  his  slain  and 
defeated  comrades,  rebels,  like  these,  against  a  legal  but 
tyrannical  power. 

May  God  help  us  all  to  give  ourselves  to  Him,  in  the 
consecration  of  a  holy  heart  and  life,  and  then  to  the  great 
moral  warfare  with  every  vice,  chiefest  of  which,  in  the  cry 
of  the  down-trodden,  and  the  crime  of  the  down-treader,  is 
American  Slavery. 


THE    MAKTYE.* 


NOTHER  date  has  been  added  to  our  national  his- 
*°  ^ne  hist°ry  °f  t^6  world.  Next  to  July 
1776,  is  to  stand  in  the  world's  chronology, 
against  the  name  of  America,  December  2,  1859. 
None  between  them  can  be  placed  beside  them.  These 
will  stand  with  the  two  dates  immediately  preceding  the 
former,  —  April  19  and  June  17,  1775,  —  and  with  two  pre- 
ceding that  —  October  10,  1492,  and  December  22,  1620- 
the  Discovery  of  the  Continent  and  the  Landing  of  the 
Pilgrims,  as  the  chief  days  of  her  history  unto  this  hour. 
The  striking  of  the  clock  of  Humanity  only  happens  when 
events  of  mighty  influence  on  the  destiny  of  nations  and 
races  occur.  Solferino,  as  the  moment  when  Italy  came  out 
of  its  grave  of  centuries,  may  have  such  honor.  Waterloo, 
because  it  had  no  moral  nor  national  significance,  will  de- 
scend from  its  high  place,  and  rank  only  with  Philippi,  Ac- 
tium,  Cannae,  New  Orleans,  when  dynasties  are  affected,  not 
races. 

*  An  address  prepared  for  a  public  meeting  arranged  to  be  holden  at 
Maiden,  Mass.,  on  the  evening  of  the  execution  of  John  Brown.  The 
meeting  was  not  held,  and  the  address  was  published  in  "  Zion's  Her- 
ald," December  8,  1859. 

(169) 


170  THE   MARTYR. 

This  day  is  not  only  in  its  events,  but  in  in  its  physical 
character,  a  national  day.  It  is  a  Virginia  winter's  day,  so 
warm  and  sunny  in  this  region  that  we  have  sat  without  fires 
and  with  open  windows  ;  a  halcyon  day,  when  the  bird  of 
freedom  broods  in  its  nest ;  a  day,  probably,  almost  identical 
in  character  from  New  Brunswick  to  Mexico.  It  would  seem 
as  though  Providence  had  made  the  universal  feeling,  calm, 
warm,  unusual,  infect  the  day. 

Everybody  gathered  about  that  gallows  ;  everybody  saw 
that  gallant  man  march  serenely  to  his  grave  ;  everybody 
felt  to  say,  "  Let  us  also  go,  that  we  may  die  with  him." 
We  knew,  South  and  North,  slave  and  slaveholder,  we  knew 
in  our  inmost  hearts  that  he  was  being  crowned  by  the 
Divine  Lover  of  all  men,  the  Divine  Sufferer  for  all  men, 
with  glory,  honor,  immortality,  eternal  life. 

Why  this  interest  ?  Why  this  conviction  ?  Some  say  he 
was  mad  ;  some  say  he  was  bloody-minded.  He  took  the 
sword;  it  is  right  that  he  should  perish  with  the  sword. 
Was  he  insane  ?  AVas  he  a  monomaniac  ?  Did  he  labor  under 
a  mental  hallucination  ?  So  some  of  his  many  friends  rep- 
resent ;  but  if  so,  why  this  mighty,  instinctive,  irrepressible 
approval  ?  Why  do  our  hearts  belie  our  lips  ?  Why  do  we 
have  to  put  our  nature  unjier  the  hatchways  when  we  con- 
demn him  ?  Let  us  look  at  him  as  our  children  will  a  half  a 
century  hence  —  ay,  as  we  shall  ere  a  decade  of  years  passes 
over  us.  We  have  read  the  affidavits  which  were  said  to 
prove  his  insanity,  and  though  we  condemn  the  Virginia 
court  that  slew  him  for  many  of  its  rulings,  we  think  it 
showed  good  sense  in  excluding  that  testimony.  His  mad- 
ness, according  to  that  record,  consisted  in  feeling  that  he 
was  called  upon  to  oppose  slavery.  He  only  lived  to  kill 
that  murderer.  If  that  is  insanity,  we  shall  find  no  mad- 
house large  enough  to  contain  a  tithe  of  his  companions. 
He  was  not  mad.  However  erroneous  his  judgment,  as  to 
his  resources  or  his  expectations,  he  was  a  cool,  shrewd, 


THE  SECOND  OF  DECEMBER.          171 

sane  man ;  and  they  who  now,  from  terror  or  ignorance, 
brand  him  with  insanity,  will,  ere  many  years  have  flown,  ac- 
knowledge the  greatness  of  his  wisdom.  « 

But  whether  his  undertaking  was  wise  or  foolish  in  a  pol- 
itic, worldly  sense,  was  it  right  ?  We  as  Christians  can 
defend  no  act  which  does  not  stand  on  this  foundation.  The 
question  is  more  important ;  is  it  more  difficult  ?  It  seems 
to  be,  by  the  utterances  which  have  gone  forth  concerning 
it.  "  It  is  destiny,"  says  one.  "  It  is  divine  sovereignty," 
says  another.  "  It  is  an  inscrutable  Providence,"  says  a 
third.  They  see  the  handwriting,  but  cannot  interpret  it 
any  more  than  the  terrified  Belshazzar.  But  it  ought  not  to 
be  a  hard  thing  to  understand  John  Brown.  It  is  not  hard 
to  see  through  every  other  deed  of  that  transparent  life, 
whether  those  by  which  he  saved  Kansas  from  the  clutch 
of  slavery,  when  he  from  the  robber  rent  that  prey,  or  those 
by  \vhich  he  has  won  all  hearts  since  his  capture.  His  words 
are  so  plain  that  he  that  runs  may  read  them.  Why  is  not 
this  central  act  apprehensible  ?  Simply  because  we  have 
not  yet  dared  to  study  it.  We  have  been  as  afraid  of  it  as 
they  of  him.  He  was  too  ripe  for  us,  but  not  for  the  cause. 
The  instinct  of  every  heart  declares  the  latter ;  the  perplex- 
ities of  every  head  the  former.  . 

Now,  this  country  has  not  gone  crazy  over  a  madman  ;  it 
has  not  forgotten  its  Christianity  in  the  fascinations  of  a 
great  murderer.  The  men  and  women  that  love  and  praise 
him  are  pious,  humble,  God-fearing,  man-loving,  war-hating 
men  and  women.  Why  do  they  praise  and  love  him  ?  Be- 
cause he  did  simply  this  :  He  gave  the  slaves  their  freedom, 
and  means  to  defend  that  freedom  ;  that  is  all.  Not  a  pike 
nor  pistol  was  for  aggression,  for  murder  or  rapine,  but  for 
defense  against  their  otherwise  murderous  masters.  This 
was  the  only  new  thing  about  this  enterprise.  Hundreds 
have  been  run  off  without  arms  of  defense.  Torrey  has  pre- 
ceded Brown  to  martyrdom  for  doing,  in  this  way,  as  he 


172  THE   MAKTYR. 

would  be  done  by.  Brown  merely  added  weapons  of  defense. 
His  own  assertion,  repeated  over  and  over  again,  establishes 
this.  He  was  not  like  Warren,  to  whom  he  has  been  com- 
pared, in  all  respects,  though  he  was  in  many.  Warren 
armed  himself  and  his  men  with  the  intention  of  fighting. 
Brown  armed  himself  and  his  slaves  with  the  intent  to  pre- 
vent bloodshed.  Was  this  wrong  ?  Our  Master  says,  "He 
that  hath  no  sword,  let  him  sell  his  coat  and  buy  one."  Not 
that  His  disciples  should  engage  in  aggressive  or  vindictive 
war,  but  that  they  should  defend  themselves,  their  families, 
and  their  liberties,  against  the  enslaving  armies  of  their  ene- 
mies. The  church  has  never  adopted  the  doctrine  of  non- 
resistance  :  it  never  will.  As  long  as  man  feels  that  he  has 
a  right  to  raise  his  hand  to  protect  his  head  against  the 
murderer's  blow,  he  will  feel  that  he  has  a  right  to  mail  that 
hand,  to  arm  that  hand,  for  this  sole  purpose.  For  this  alone 
he  gave  his  slave  brethren  weapons.  Can  we  say  he  had 
no  right  to  give  them  ? 

But  it  may  be  said  "  all  such  interference  is  unjustifiable." 
Then  we  are  verily  guilty  if  we  aid  a  fugitive  to  escape ; 
for  the  law  holds  him  in  slavery  here.  If  we  say  armed  in- 
tervention on  the  soil  puts  a  very  different  aspect  on  the  case, 
let  us  ask  ourselves  what  we  have  said  of  Louis  Napoleon's 
armed  intervention  in  Italy.  Not  like  John  Brown's,  —  a  war 
of  defense  alone,  —  but  purely  and  intentionally  from  the  be- 
ginning a  war  of  offense.  How  paeans  went  up  to  him  as 
long  as  he  was  faithful  to  that  cause  !  How  he  was  hon- 
ored with  the  title  of  the  Liberator  of  Italy  !  And  did  Italy 
call  Napoleon  with  half  the  imploring  voice  that  Virginia 
called  Captain  Brown  ?  Were  the  Italians  suffering  what 
our  brethren  in  that  country  are  suffering  ?  Did  the  Austri- 
an sell  the  Venetians  into  hopeless  bondage  far  into  South- 
ern Italy  ?  Did  he  steal  the  Milanese  peasant  from  his  wife  ? 
Did  he  seize  their  dark-eyed  daughter,  and  sell  her  to  his 
light-haired  German  neighbor  for  purposes  too  horrid  to  think 


THE  SECOND  OF  DECEMBEE.         173 

of?  Were  the  Italians  fettered  and  lashed,  driven  from 
Venice  to  Rome,  or  carried  in  slave  ships  from  Genoa  to 
Naples,  as  they  are  to-day  from  Richmond  to  Memphis,  from 
Baltimore  to  Mobile?  Before  we  judge  John  Brown  we 
must  judge  every  attempted  liberator  of  his  own  or  another 
people  from  tyrannical  servitude.  Let  us  cast  the  beam  out 
of  our  own  eye,  and  then  shall  we  see  clearly  to  take  the 
mote  out  of  our  brother's  eye.  We  shall  cast  it  out.  We 
shall  see  clearly.  We  shall  unitedly  say  ere  many  days  that 
this  man,  whom  all  call  a  Christian,  has  violated  no  Christian 
obligation  in  this  remarkable  undertaking. 

If  it  was  the  work  of  a  sane  and  pious  man,  was  it  that 
of  a  wise  one  ?  This  seems  to  demand  two  answers.  Wis- 
dom is  sometimes  gauged  by  success,  sometimes  not.  Kos- 
sutli  has  always  been  called  a  wise  man,  though  he  failed ; 
so  Warren  ;  so  Socrates.  Did  Brown  fail  ?  The  day  of  his 
death  was  the  day  of  his  greatest  victory.  Two  things  were 
in  his  heart.  God  gave  them  to  him  :  Inspiration  of  the  slave 
with  such  a  desire  for  freedom  as  will  make  him  ready  to  die 
to  obtain  it ;  and  inspiration  of  the  pretended  owner,  with 
such  a  conviction  of  his  sin,  and  such  fear  to  continue  in  it, 
as  will  make  him  haste  to  escape  from  it.  The  first  will 
appear.  All  who  know  the  slaves,  and  dare  to  speak,  know 
how  this  deed  has  inspired  them.  The  last  is  already  his. 
Eveiy  eye  sees  it ;  every  slaveholder's  heart  feels  it.  Con- 
viction of  duty,  and  the  terrible  danger  of  neglecting  it, 
have  gone  through  that  whole  Southern  land  like  an  earth- 
quake. They  may  appear  very  confident ;  they  may  shout 
over  his  gallows,  "  Abolitionism  is  dead ;  long  live  Sla- 
very !  "  But  the  terrible  Nemesis,  shod  with  wool,  suddenly 
stands  behind  them,  and  whispers  in  their  affrighted  ears,  — 

"  If  the  red  slayer  thinks  he  slays, 
Or  if  the  slain  think  he  is  slain, 
They  know  not  well  the  subtle  ways 
I  keep,  and  pass,  and  come  again." 


174  THE  MARTYR. 

The  slain  knew  he  was  not  slain.  No  man  ever  went  to 
a  martyr's  death  with  such  assurance  of  success  ;  no  man 
ever  had  better  grounds.  And  that  red  slayer,  the  slave 
power,  that  has  driven  Governor  Wise  to  wash  his  unwill- 
ing hands  in  this  saintly  blood,  already  beholds  the  dread 
Avenger  come  again.  They  are  not  eating  their  festal  feasts 
of  victory  without  seeing  the  terrible  spectre,  and  they  cry, 
with  chattering  teeth,  — 

"  Hence,  horrible  shadow ! 
Unreal  mockery,  hence  !     The  times  have  been 
That  when  the  brains  were  out  the  man  would  die, 
And  so  an  end.     But  now  they  rise  again 
With  twenty  mortal  murthers  in  their  crowns 
To  push  us  from  our  stools." 

They  surround  the  gallows  with  an  army.  Also  propi- 
tious ;  for  thus  they  bring  the  first  citizens  of  Virginia  from 
every  section  of  the  Commonwealth  to  escort  their  captive 
to  his  crown.  And  those  clear-eyed,  strong-minded  sol- 
diers could  not  have  witnessed  that  wonderful  death  without 
feeling  that  he  and  his  cause  were  right,  and  would  triumph. 
They  must  have  said,  hundreds  of  them,  in  their  hearts,  like 
Balaam  before  Israel,  "  May  I  die  the  death  of  that  righteous 
man,  and  may  my  last  end  be  like  his  !  " 

Then,  too,  the  fact  that  this  institution  could  only  be 
upheld  by  the  bayonet,  shows  it  is  near  its  end.  No  cause 
in  this  land  can  long  stand  which  requires  such  support. 
That  very  display,  which  was  not  for  us,  not  to  keep  their 
prisoners  in  their  toils,  but  to  inspire  terror  in  the  slave, 
shows  that  the  cause  that  asks  its  aid  is  dying.  We  hail 
the  omens  ;  the  sacrifice  is  slain  on  the  altar  of  Slavery  ; 
the  auguries  foretell  the  speedy  destruction  of  that  abomi- 
nation. 

Let  us  not  murmur  at  this  deed,  or  its  doer.  So  mur- 
mured some  of  our  fathers  at  the  mad  enterprise  of  Prescott, 
and  Putnam,  and  Warren.  "  Foolhardy  men,"  they  doubt- 


THE  SECOND  OF  DECEMBER.          175 

less  said,  "  to  throw  themselves  against  a  force  so  far  above 
them  in  numbers,  equipment,  and  training  !  What  property 
destroyed  !  What  lives  lost !  And  he,  our  Commander-in- 
Chief,  has  flung  himself  most  foolishly  away."  Not  so  mur- 
murs the  sea  of  applause  that  beats  around  that  great  deed 
to-day  from  the  vast  ocean  of  humanity,  even  as  the  waves 
of  every  clime  murmur  at  the  base  of  its  immortal  hill. 
The  Charlestown  of  Virginia  shall  stand  forever  beside,  and 
yet  above,  the  Charlestown  of  Massachusetts. 

Let  Slavery  then  proceed  to  the  bloody  end  of  her  unnat- 
ural revenge.  Let  her  crunch  her  remaining  captives,  as 
she  has  their  great  leader,  in  her  dripping  jaws,  grin  hor- 
ribly a  ghastly  smile,  settle  down  upon  the  burning  marl, 
and  gloat  over  the  miserable  victims  that  daily  feed  her 
hellish  maw.  Let  her  use  their  survivor  to  decoy  the 
anti-slavery  leaders  to  her  den,  so  that  they,  too,  served  up 
by  Judge  Lynch,  may  tickle  the  delicate  palate  of  this  eater 
of  men.  Will  the  haughty  slavocracy  cease  the  less  to  fear 
her  slaves  ?  Cowards  fear  the  dead  more  than  the  living. 
She  fears  both.  She  is  fast  rushing  to  her  grave.  Great 
signs  in  the  religious,  the  political,  the  social  heavens,  betoken 
her  overthrow.  All  forces  are  uniting  against  her,  —  Church 
and  State,  society  and  civilization,  —  and  like  every  tyrant, 
she  loses  everything,  and  loses  it  instantly,  if  she  loses  her 
Waterloo.  Ere  long  she  will  lose  Waterloo.  Within  this 
first  century  of  our  national  life  she  will  disappear.  Then 
will  all  men  unite  in  praising  this  Samson  who  first  tore 
down  the  pillars  of  this  soul-devouring  Dagon.  Then  will 
Virginia  set  aside  the  judgment  of  her  courts  against  these 
brave  and  true  men  who  loved  her  better  than  her  rulers, 
better  than  she  loved  herself,  and  will  place  beside  her 
\Vasliington,  him  whom  she  has  just  hung,  and  whose  dead 
body  she  has  spewed  out  of  her  land. 

Let  every  one  measure  this  whole  character  and  career 
by  the  true  Christian  standard,  and  let  them  so  far  obey 


176  THE   MAKTYR. 

the  voice  of  duty  and  of  God  in  their  hearts  as  he  did 
in  his. 

We  shall  be  compelled  by  our  conscience  to  utter  the 
whole  truth  to  the  master  ;  to  withhold  no  word  of  sympa- 
thy and  rightful  succor  from  the  slave.  We  shall  be  re- 
quired by  the  Father  of  all,  the  Sacrifice  for  all,  the  Illumi- 
nator of  all,  to  feel  our  oneness  with  this  race.  Almost 
John  Brown's  last  act  was  one  whose  fitness  none  can  ques- 
tion, whose  large  lesson  all  must  learn.  .  As  he  left  the  jail, 
he  saw  a  slave  woman  and  her  babe  near  its  door,  and,  as 
she,  with  a  smiling  countenance,  addressed  him,  he,  stooping 
over,  kissed  her  babe.  Who  of  that  crowd  could  have  done 
that  ?  Who  of  the  readers  of  the  story  ?  He,  face  to  face 
with  his  coffin,  face  to  face  with  his  God,  recognizes  the 
cause  for  which  he  was  to  die,  and  teaches  us  the  lesson  this 
nation  is  set  to  learn,  and  to  teach  all  other  nations  —  the 
union  and  fraternity  of  Man. 

Let  the  bells  toll,  then,  on  the  return  of  this  great  day. 
Soon  will  their  knell  be  changed  to  merry  peals  of  gladness 
over  the  glorious  consummation  of  Universal  Emancipation, 
for  which  he  laid  down  his  heroic  life,  and  received  his  eter- 
nal crown. 


TE    DEUM   LAUDAMUS.* 


"  I  WILL  SING  UNTO  THE  LORD,  FOR  HE  HATH  TRIUMPHED  GLORIOUSLY. 
THE  HORSE  AND  HIS  RIDER  HATH  HE  THROWN  INTO  THE  SEA." 

Exodus  xv.  1. 

"  BUT  PROMOTION  COMETH  NEITHER  FROM  THE  EAST,  NOR  FROM  THE 
WEST,  NOR  FROM  THE  SOUTH.  BUT  QK)D  IS  JUDGE  :  HE  PUTTETH 
DOWN  ONE,  AND  SETTETH  UP  ANOTHER."  —  Ps.  IxXV.  6,  7. 

"  JESUS    SAITH     UNTO    THEM,    DlD    YE    NEVER  READ    IN    THE  SCRIPTURES, 

THE  STONE  WHICH  THE  BUILDERS  REJECTED,  THE  SAME  is  BECOME 

THE    HEAD     OF    THE  CORNER;    THIS  IS  THE   LORD'S  DOING,  AND    IT    IS 
MARVELOUS  IN  OUR  EYES." Matt.  Xxi.  42. 

NE  year  ago  last  Sabbath  evening,  we  assembled 
in  this  house  to  meditate  on  the  beginning  of  the 
end  of  American  slavery.  A  fortnight  before,  a 
score  of  men  had  made  a  descent  on  a  national 
arsenal,  freed  some  slaves,  been  captured  by  the  soldiers  of 
the  Federal  Government,  their  leader  tried,  condemned,  and 
sentenced  to  be  hung.  You  well  remember  the  month  that 

*  A  Thanksgiving  sermon  delivered  in  the  Harvard  Street  Metho- 
dist Episcopal  Church,  Cambridge,  Sunday  evening,  November  11,  I860, 
on  the  occasion  of  the  first  election  of  Abraham  Lincoln  to  the  Presi- 
dency of  the  United  States. 

The  following  dedication  was  appended  to  the  sermon  when  pub- 
lished :  — 

"  To  the  HONORABLE  CHARLES  SUMNER, 

Who  has  spoken  the  bravest  words  for  Liberty  in  the  most  perilous 
places  ;  who  has  suffered  in  behalf  of  the  Slave  only  less  than  those  who 
12  <177> 


178  TE   DEUM  LAUDAMUS. 

followed  —  far  more  exciting  than  the  one  through  which 
we  have  just  passed.  For  thirty  days,  from  Calais  to  Gal- 
veston,  only  one  name  was  on  every  lip,  only  one  feeling  in 
every  heart.  You  all  remember  the  day  of  his  death  :  — 

"  Sweet  day,  so  cool,  so  calm,  so  bright, 
The  bridal  of  the  earth  and  sky." 

You  remember,  far  more  clearly,  the  death  itself,  —  more 
sweet,  more  cool,  more  calm,  more  bright,  his  soul's  great 
bridal  of  earth  and  heaven.  No  death  of  greater  beauty 
adorns  the  pages  df  secular  history  —  no  one  sublimer  is 
in  the  annals  of  Christian  martyrdom.  Socrates,  with  the 
hemlock  at  his  lips,  was  not  more  charming  and  child-like. 
Latimer,  in  the  fire,  was  not  more  cheerful.  Paul,  among 
the  lions,  was  not  more  triumphant.  It  was  by  far  the 
greatest  death-scene  in  American  history,  and  will  shine 
forth  purer  and  nobler  with  every  passing  year,  and  pass- 
ing age. 

We  come  to-night  not  to  sorrow  over  Liberty  enslaved 
afresh  —  Liberty,  tried  by  the  jury  of  the  country,  and  with- 
out cause,  without  consideration,  found  guilty  —  Liberty  un- 
der sentence  of  death,  arid  on  her  way  to  the  scaffold.  No, 
thanks  be  to  God,  the  beginning  of  the  end  of  slavery  gives 
us  gladder  scenes  in  the  opening  of  this  act  of  its  fast 
accomplishing  drama. 

The  defeat  at  Bunker's  Hill  and  the  death  of  Warren  — 
a  lost  day  and  a  lost  leader  —  cast  an  immeasurable  gloom, 
for  a  season,  in  spite  of  some  redeeming  features,  over  the 

wear  the  martyr's  crown  ;  who  has  come  forth  from  that  suffering  with 
the  profoundest,  because  experimental,  sympathy  with  the  Oppressed, 
with  a  more  intense  hatred  of  the  Oppression,  yet  without  any  bitterness 
of  heart  against  the  Oppressor;  who  will  stand  forth  in  the  future  times 
as  the  clearest-eyed,  boldest-tongued,  and  purest-hearted  Statesman  of 
the  age,  —  these  few  words  of  Thanksgiving  and  Praise  for  the  mani- 
festation of  the  Presence  and  Power  of  the  Almighty  Redeemer  in  this 
greatest  work  of  our^ime,  are  most  respectfully  dedicated." 


ELECTION   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  179 

American  heart.  But  the  second  great  act,  executed,  like 
this,  in  but  little  less  than  a  year  from  the  first,  executed, 
like  this,  under  the  leadership  of  the  chosen  captain  of  their 
hosts,  by  which  a  proud  and  mighty  enemy,  flushed  with 
long  success,  and  backed  by  the  gigantic  strength  of  a  pow- 
erful nation,  without  the  firing  of  a  gun,  evacuated  their 
most  important  post  in  the  whole  country,  left  it,  never  to 
return,  —  the  great  deed  by  which  Washington  purged  Bos- 
ton of  its  insolent  and  murderous  foe, — thrilled  the  whole 
nation  with  unmitigated  joy.  So  this  peaceful  evacuation 
by  the  arrogant,  wealthy,  and  long-ruling  Slave  Power  of 
the  most  important  post  it  ever  held  or  can  hold,  never  to 
return,  has  caused  such  a  flood  of  ecstasy  as  never  before 
filled  the  hearts  of  this  people  since  the  bells  rang  out  the 
first  declaration,  and  the  bewildered  multitudes  awoke  to 
the  realization  of  their  existence  as  a  united  and  free  na- 
tion. The  perplexing  and  saddening  features  of  the  event 
of  last  year  do  not  mar  this  victory.  No  gallows  tree 
stretches  its  black  arms  athwart  the  golden  sky  ;  no  dying 
groans,  no  stiffened  forms,  attend  the  triumphal  shout  and 
march.  Shall  we  not,  then,  come  before  His  presence  with 
thanksgivings  whose  right  hand  and  holy  arm  hath  gotten 
Him  the  victory  ?  For  promotion  cometh  neither  from  the 
east,  nor  from  the  west,  nor  from  the  south.  But  God  is 
judge  :  He  putteth  down  one  and  setteth  up  another. 

Not  in  the  interest  of  the  great  party  through  whom  He 
has  done  this  work  do  I  appear,  but  in  the  interest  of  that 
cause  which  swells  far,  far  beyond  the  power  of  that  or  any 
party  to  embrace  —  the  redemption  of  millions  upon  millions 
of  my  fellow-men.  In  their  behalf  I  raise  the  song  of  praise. 
That  redemption  draweth  nigh.  Power  is  passing  away 
from  the  side  of  the  oppressor.  Power  which  belongeth 
unto  God  is  being  employed  by  Him  to  break  this  infamous 
yoke.  Shall  we  not  laud  and  magnify  his  Name,  in  whose 
hand  are  the  hearts  of  the  children  of  men,  that  he  has 


180  TE   DEUM  LAUDAMUS. 

turned  them  as  the  rivers  of  water  are  turned,  and  made 
them  sweep  upon,  soon,  we  trust,  to  sweep  away,  this  rooted 
and  massy  iniquity  in  their  overflowing,  swift-rushing  flood  ? 

You  may  ask,  Is  it  not  a  profanation  of  the  sanctuary  to 
employ  it  for  rejoicings  over  mere  political  strifes  ?  This  is 
very  far  from  an  ordinary  victory,  and  for  its  celebration  we 
have  the  unanimous  voice  of  all  ages  and  all  religious. 

Abraham  praised  God,  in  a  temple  not  made  with  hands, 
for  the  defeat  of  his  enemies,  and  Melchizedek,  the  priest 
of  the  Most  High  God,  the  type  of  Christ,  poured  upon  his 
head  the  divine  benedictions.  The  victories  of  the  Hebrew 
kings  were  celebrated  in  the  temple,  and  some  of  the  grand- 
est psalms  were  written  in  praise  of  national  deliverances. 
The  heathen  have  followed  this  natural  sentiment,  and  in  all 
ages  and  nations  have  hung  the  trophies  of  their  triumphs 
in  their  temples  ;  have  made  their  praises  to  their  gods  rise 
above  their  shouts  over  their  fallen  foe.  So  the  Philistines 
rejoiced  before  Dagon,  when  they  had  captured  Samson  ; 
and,  in  a  later  day,  when  they  gained  possession  of  the  Ark 
of  God.  The  history  of  Delphi  and  other  templed  spots  is 
but  a  catalogue  of  such  thanksgivings.  The  Christian 
world  has,  from  the  first,  obeyed  the  ancestral,  human  law. 
"Te  Deum  laudamus,"  "  We  praise  thee,  0  God,"  has  rung 
through  the  lofty  arches  of  great  cathedrals,  and  against 
the  dome  of  heaven,  for  more  than  a  thousand  years,  when 
the  Lord  had  given  their  country  deliverance  in  the  day  of 
battle. 

We  have,  therefore,  abundant  precedent  in  the  universal 
practice  of  our  race  for  entering  these  courts,  to-night,  with 
thanksgivings,  and  these  walls  with  praise.  Have  we 
abundant  reason  ?  It  may  be  said  that  these  religious  na- 
tional rejoicings  were  because  of  victories  won  on  bloody 
fields,  won  over  a  foreign  foe,  and  at  the  expense  of  human 
life.  Is  a  mere  periodical  strife,  peaceful  and  bloodless, 
between  brethren  of  the  same  family,  for  the  honors  of 


ELECTION   OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN.  181 

civil  life,  —  is  this  to  be  placed  beside  the  overthrow  of  the 
Egyptians,  the  destruction  of  the  Assyrians,  the  redemption 
of  Europe  at  Waterloo,  of  Italy  at  Solferino  ?  Is  it  not 
straining  a  point  to  thus  elevate  the  mad  whirl  of  quadren- 
nial politics  into  a  great  national,  a  great  world  battle, 
which  marks  an  epoch  in  the  history  of  the  race  ? 

These  questions  are  very  proper.  For  if  it  be  but  the 
ordinary  strife  of  ordinary  politics,  although  the  Church  has 
the  guardianship  of  these  as  she  has  of  every  other  matter 
pertaining  to  human  duty,  yet  she  might  safely  leave  them 
to  the  general  course  of  her  counsel  and  authority,  without 
making  their  ephemeral  victories  subject  of  especial  exulta- 
tion. 

Let  us  then  ask,  as  a  needful  preliminary  to  our  songs  of 
gladness  and  of  hope,  What  was  the  subject  of  controversy 
in  the  late  conflict  ? 

The  only  subject  set  before  the  people  was  Slavery ;  its 
extension  and  nationalization,  or  its  relegation  to  the  regions 
now  blackened  with  it,  there  to 

"  writhe  in  pain, 
And  die  amid  its  worshipers." 

Four  parties  were  professedly  in  the  field,  but  only  two 
combatants,  —  only  one  question.  In  different  parts  of  the 
land,  the  two  intermediate  parties  took  different  positions, 
according  to  the  sentiment  ruling  there.  In  the  South  they 
contended  against  the  domineering  passion  for  the  national 
supremacy  of  Slavery.  In  the  North  they  fought  with 
equal  zeal  against  its  ruling  passion,  the  national  supremacy 
of  Liberty.  Their  bands  flew  across  the  field,  now  striking 
at  the  haughty  Slave  Power,  and  now  at  the  iron  legions  of 
Freedom. 

Behind  them  advanced  steadily  the  main  hosts  with  their 
banners  flying,  each  glowing  with  its  one  word.  On  the 
one  "  Slavery  ;"  on  the  other,  "Liberty."  Marching  be- 


182  TE   DEUM   LAUDAMUS. 

neath  them,  each  party  instinctively,  immeasurably  felt,  that 
the  issue  involved  the  most  vital  questions  ever  submitted 
to  this  nation  ;  and  that  the  result  was  sure  to  be  disas- 
trous to  freedom,  if  defeated,  fatal  to  slavery,  if  it  should 
go  down  in  the  battle. 

No  other  question  was  debated  by  the  leading  advocates 
of  all  parties.  One  of  the  candidates  for  the  Presidency,* 
and  one  of  the  ablest  men  in  the  country,  traversed  its 
length  and  breadth,  making  many  addresses  ;  and  the  bur- 
den of  every  one  was  Slavery.  He  endeavored  to  exclude 
it  from  the  canvass,  but  he  could  not  exclude  it  from  his 
own  speeches.  It  rounded  every  sentence,  pointed  e.very 
line.  And  it  was  not  a  little  remarkable  that  so  sagacious 
a  statesman  should  not  have  perceived,  that  what  had  filled 
all  his  public  life,  good  and  evil,  for  a  decade  of  years,  was 
not  to  be  banished  from  the  general  mind,  nor  settled  in  the 
national  councils,  except  by  a  fair  fight  on  the  appointed 
field. 

The  other  party,  though  attempting  to  banish  it  from 
its  platform,  showed  the  impossibility  of  the  attempt  in 
its  very  phraseology.  For  its  two  chief  words,  "  Constitu- 
tion and  Union,"  proved  that  it  felt  or  fancied  these  to 
be  endangered  by  the  struggle  with  slavery.  Its  worthy 
appendix,  "the  enforcement  of  the  laws,"  was  aimed  solely 
at  the  execution  of  the  most  unchristian  and  inhuman  act 
that  ever  issued  from  a  Christian  legislature. 

From  the  unwilling  but  universal  confession  of  neutrals, 
therefore,  no  less  than  from  the  declarations  of  real  oppo- 
nents, do  we  see  clearly  the  field  of  conflict.  The  real 
weapons  of  the  real  fighters  were  all  drawn  from  one  armo- 
ry, all  waged  in  one  battle.  The  only  speaker  that  advo- 
cated the  Southern  party  in  this  region  made  the  strongest 
defense  of  human  slavery  ever  made  in  Massachusetts. 
There  was  an  honest  boldness  that  was  refreshing  to  wit- 

*  Stephen  A.  Douglas. 


ELECTION    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  183 

ness,  in  inviting  Mr.  Yancey  to  give  a  pro-slavery  speech 
in  Faneuil  Hall  —  a  boldness  no  party  would  have  been 
equal  to  in  any  previous  campaign.  The  invitation  was  not 
accepted  by  a  timid  man.  No  abler,  no  more  courageous 
speech  was  ever  made  in  Boston  than  Mr.  Yancey's,  viewed 
as  a  eulogy  on  a  system  abhorrent  in  the  utmost  degree  to 
almost  every  one  of  his  audience.  As  he  was  here,  so 
were  his  associates  everywhere  on  slave  soil.  As  he  was 
here,  so  would  the  advocates  of  freedom  have  been,  had 
they  been  allowed  to  speak  in  Richmond,  Charleston,  Mo- 
bile, or  New  Orleans.  So  were  they  on  their  native  heather, 
the  broad,  free  soil  of  the  North. 

Not  a  syllable  was  breathed  against  the  candidate  of 
Slavery,  except  his  devotion  to  that  system  ;  not  a  syllable 
against  the  victorious  leader  of  the  hosts  of  Freedom,  ex- 
cept his  opposition  to  it.  "It  is  the  cause/'  then,  "it  is 
the  cause,  my  friends,"  that  has  organized,  inspired,  waged 
and  won  this  national  battle.  It  is  the  cause,  too,  that 
commands  me  to  speak  to-night,  to  speak  in  my  official 
capacity,  as  an  ambassador  of  Jesus  Christ,  upon  one  of  the 
especial  objects  of  His  mission  —  the  freedom,  equality,  and 
fraternity  of  the  human  race. 

Some  may  yet  complain  that  we  drag  the  holy  vestments 
of  the  altar  in  this  mire  of  social  strife.  Do  you  remember 
how  Phinehas,  the  priest  of  the  Most  High  God,  possibly 
while  arrayed  in  most  sacred  robes,  and  in  his  hand  the 
sacrificial  knife  consecrated  exclusively  to  the  service  of 
the  altar,  rushed  in  among  the  sinning  Israelites  and  their 
idolatrous  associates,  slaying  heathen  and  Hebrew  in  the 
midst  of  their  profane  abominations  ?  And  do  you  remem- 
ber how  that  Most  High  God  said  to  Moses,  "  Phinehas, 
the  son  of  Eleazer,  the  son  of  Aaron,  the  priest,  hath  turned 
my  wrath  away  from  the  children  of  Israel,  while  he  was 
zealous  for  my  sake  among  them,  that  I  consumed  not  the 
children  of  Israel  in  my  jealousy  ?  Wherefore  say,  '  Behold, 


184  TE   DEUM   LAUDAMUS. 

I  give  unto  him  my  covenant  of  peace  :  and  he  shall  have 
it,  and  his  seed  after  him,  even  the  covenant  of  an  everlast- 
ing priesthood :  because  he  was  zealous  for  his  God,  and 
made  an  atonement  for  the  children  of  Israel.' '  Was  it  a 
greater  deed  for  this  minister  to  stay  the  plague  of  volun- 
tary passion,  than  for  us  to  seek  to  stay  that  plague  which 
makes  pure  and  pious  men  and  women  the  victims  of  every 
conceivable  lust  that  power,  avarice,  or  passion  breeds  ? 

If  Christ  showed  that  the  zeal  of  the  house  of  the  Lord 
had  eaten  him  up,  by  scourging  from  the  temple,  the  seat 
of  civil  as  well  as  religious  authority,  those  that  sold  doves, 
shall  we  say  His  servants  are  not  His  followers  when  they 
seek  to  scourge  from  our  temple  of  civil  and  religious  lib- 
erty those  that  sell  MEN  ?  The  temple  of  our  national  life 
has  become  defiled.  Woe  to  that  priest  who  is  dumb  before 
the  defilers  !  In  Christ's  day  some  of  them  shared  in  the 
business  that  profaned  his  house.  In  our  day  some  of  them 
share  in  the  honors  and  profits  of  this  far  greater  profana- 
tion. Let  us  obey  the  example  He  has  set  us,  —  not  the 
decrees  of  timid,  time-serving,  wicked  men. 

But  this  defense  is  unnecessary  before  this  congregation. 
The  contest  as  to  the  rights  and  duties  of  the  ministry  to 
engage  in  this  work  has  long  been  settled  in  this  region. 
Here  and  there,  the  rare  exceptions  requisite  to  prove  a 
rule  rise  before  us,  denying  the  privileges  of  humanity  to 
those  who  are  set  to  apply  to  the  hearts  of  men  all  the  laws 
of  the  Divine  Author  of  humanity.  Not  so  with  the  multi- 
tudes. Slavery  is  to  them  an  object  not  only  of  civil,  but 
of  religious  detestation.  Its  defeat,  on  any  field,  is  a  cause 
of  religious  thanksgiving.  Its  defeat  on  the  field  where  it 
has  just  fallen,  -«-  the  field  it  has  ruled  the  longest  and  the 
ablest,  where  its  chief  seat  is  by  choice,  and  by  necessity 
if  it  retain  any  seat  in  the  land,  its  overthrow  arid  its  expul- 
sion from  the  throne  of  the  national  government,  its  flight 
to  its  native  lair,  and  the  soon  coming  fight  there  for  bare 


ELECTION   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  185 

existence, — these  are  subjects  of  the  most  devout,  the  most 
rapturous  praise.  "Not  unto  us,  0  Lord,  not  unto  us,  but 
unto  Thy  name  give  giory,  for  Thy  mercy  and  Thy  truth's 
sake." 

Let  us,  then,  gratefully  meditate  on  the  late  victory,  con- 
sidering its  cause  and  its  consequence. 

I.  Its  Cause.     Why  has  Freedom  triumphed  ?  • 

For  two  chief  reasons  among  a  multitude  of  lesser  ones  : 
First,  the  growth  of  conscience  as  to  the  nature  and  effects 
of  slavery  ;  and,  Second,  the  growth  of  fear  as  to  its  politi- 
cal  power  and  prospects.  > 

1.  The  first  and  profoundest  cause  is  the  awakening  of  the 
conscience  of  the  nation  as  to  the  dreadful  character  and 
workings  of  slavery. 

There  must  always  be  two  periods,  at  least,  of  attack 
upon  any  organized  iniquity  before  the  tide  of  moral  senti- 
ment deluges  and  drowns  it  forever.  The  first  awakening 
is  moderately  efficient,  but  the  mighty  sin  is  too  strong  for 
complete  overthrow.  The  besieging  hosts  get  weary  and 
slumber  on  their  arms.  The  enemy  sallies  forth  and  tri- 
umphs over  th'em.  They  dwell  in  captivity  to  the  evil 
which  they  rose  up  against.  Again  the  conscience  grows, 
again  the  vice  is  attacked,  and  in  the  new  assault  is  left 
weaker  than  before,  perhaps  completely  destroyed  ;  if  not, 
the  victorious  right  yields  anew  to  the  slumber  of  sloth  and 
sin  ;  is  chained  and  ruled  afresh,  again  bursts  its  bands  and 
sweeps  on  irresistibly  to  victory.  Thus,  by  tidal  waves  of 
flux  and  reflux,  the  huge  mountain  of  sin  is  finally  burieTl 
beneath  the  deep,  abounding  ocean  of  truth. 

So  the  Jews  moved  forward,  from  Joshua  to  David,  in  the 
subjugation  of  Canaan.  So  Christianity  has  marched,  is 
marching  forward  in  the  subjugation  of  the  world.  So 
Grecian  idolatry,  in  a  hand-to-hand  fight  with  early  Chris- 
tianity, fell  and  rose,  fell  and  rose,  weaker  at  each  resurrec- 
tion, till,  throe  hundred  years  after  its  first  defeat,  that  form, 


186  TE   DEUM  LAUDAMUS. 

eminent  and  potent  for  more  than  a  thousand  years,  fell, 
never  to  rise  again.  So  Roman  slavery  staggered  and  tum- 
bled before  the  sharp  blows  of  the  same  Apostolic  Chris- 
tianity, —  sprang  to  its  feet  with  the  ferocity  and  strength 
of  a  wounded  lion,  and  jent  its  enemies  in  pieces  ;  again 
felt  the  shafts,  again  reeled  and  fell,  again  rose  and  raged, 
till,  after  half  a  millennium,  the  golden  rule  of  the  Savior 
and  the  golden  command  of  His  apostle  to  Christian  mas- 
ters to  give  their  servants  that  which  was  just  and  equal, 
were  finally  obeyed,  and  throughout  Christian  Europe,  prop- 
erty in  man  passed  into  the  execrable  list,  abjiired  and 
abominated  by  every  person. 

The  black  race,  in  consequence  of  its  seclusion  and  deg- 
radation, was  separated  almost  entirely  from  this  influence. 
True,  Africa  had  been  honored  with  the  earliest,  and,  in 
many  respects,  the  ablest  of  Christian  schools.  Her  sons 
had  worn  the  consecrated  mitre,  and  sat  in  equal  authority 
with  the  Bishops  of  Rome  and  Jerusalem  in  Episcopal 
Councils.  But  the  ravages  of  the  Vandals  nipped  this  bud- 
ding civilization,  and  Mussulman  fanaticism  perpetuated  the 
work  northern  Paganism  had  achieved. 

Christian  Europe,  hemmed  in  by  Mohammedanism  on  the 
south  and  south-east,  and  by  the  wildest  heathenism  on  the 
north  and  north-east,  without  extensive  commerce  and  with- 
out mechanic  arts,  itself  the  child  of  northern  idolatry,  bap- 
tized with  the  childish  Christianity  of  Rome,  grew,  by  slow 
and  unequal  steps,  to  a  true  manhood  in  Christ.  So  far  had 
she  retrograded  from  her  earliest  faith  in  the  last  two  cen- 
turies, that  traffic  in  human  flesh  was  again  found  among 
her  lawful  commerce.  And  though  she  never  fell  back  so 
far  as  to  acknowledge  the  right  of  property  in  the  white 
and  Christian  man,  she  did  finally  recognize  the  idea  of 
ownership  in  the  African  race. 

It  was  reserved  for  this  land  to  inaugurate  the  work  of 
universal  emancipation.  That  work  began  with  the  begin- 


ELECTION   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  187 

ning  of  our  history,  and  has  risen  and  fallen,  with  mingled 
success  and  failure,  to  the  victory  of  this  hour.  Massa- 
chusetts first  refused  to  receive  a  cargo  of  slaves  at  the 
same  time  that  Virginia  first  welcomed  them.  The  princi- 
ples involved  in  those  two  deeds  have  been  in  conflict, 
violent  or  latent,  throughout  our  whole  history. 

The  fundamental  law,  on  which  universal  personal  free- 
dom must  stand,  the  law  of  perfect  equality  before  God, 
has  long  been  settled  here,  has  never  yet  been  acknowl- 
edged elsewhere  in  the  world.  America  was  settled  by  the 
flower  of  Protestantism  before  it  had  fallen  into  the  sear 
and  yellow  leaf  of  formalism,  or  the  thrice  dead  infidelity 
which  covered  all  Europe,  Protestant  and  Papal,  in  the 
last  century,  with  thorns  and  briers  fit  only  for  cursing,  and 
doomed  to  be  burned. 

Our  fathers,  the  Pilgrims  and  Puritans  of  Massachusetts, 
the  Baptists  of  Rhode  Island,  the  Quakers  and  Lutherans 
of  Pennsylvania,  the  Episcopalians  of  Virginia,  the  Roman- 
ists of  Maryland,  and  the  Huguenots  of  Carolina,  were 
all  refugees  from  religious  persecution.  Every  State  was 
settled  or  largely  populated  by  sufferers  for  conscience'  sake. 
And  after  a  few  ineffectual  struggles  to  employ  the  same 
cramps  and  fetters  upon  others  that  had  been  visited  upon 
themselves,  they  arose,  one  after  another,  to  the  true  appre- 
hension of  the  rights  of  conscience,  and  Puritan  and  Epis- 
copalian, Baptist  and  Pedobaptist,  Quaker  and  Lutheran, 
Huguenot  and  Romanist,  came  to  that  broad  table-land  of 
universal  freedom  for  the  religious  sentiment  which  is  still 
the  most  wonderful  characteristic  of  this  nation. 

So  thoroughly  had  this  doctrine  filled  the  air  of  common 
life,  long  before  the  formation  of  our  confederacy,  that  only 
the  briefest  and  most  incidental  reference  to  the  whole  sub- 
ject is  found  in  our  Constitution.  I  have  heard  a  scholarly 
Englishman  complain  of  it  for  this  very  defect  —  a  defect 
like  that  found  in  the  Bible,  where  proofs  of  the  existence 


188  TE    DEUM   LAUDAMUS 

of  God  and  the  obligations  of  Religion  are  never  given,  its 
every  line  assuming  these  as  accredited,  universal  truths. 

So  did  our  fathers  settle  the  other  great  question  —  the 
greatest  that  affects  our  human  relations  —  the  absolute 
right  of  every  man  to  himself.  Advancing,  not  ascending, 
on  the  lofty  table-land  of  the  equality  of  every  man  before 
God,  they  stood  upon  that  first  of  human  truths  —  the 
equality  of  every  man  before  his  fellows.  While  Europe 
bowed  down  to  certain  families  and  individuals  as  royal  and 
sovereign  by  right  divine,  and,  as  a  natural  consequence, 
esteemed  the  other  extreme  of  society,  whether  peasants  or 
slaves,  as  void  of  all  rights  which  the  crouchers  were  bound 
to  respect,  the  American  people,  coming  together,  through 
their  representatives,  themselves  the  nominal  holders  of 
slaves,  unanimously,  unhesitatingly,  enthusiastically  de- 
clared that  "all  men  are  created  equal."  Such  a  decla- 
ration by  the  founders  of  a  nation  the  world  had  never 
heard  before. 

Their  first  struggle  was  to  establish  their  own  equality 
before  King,  and  Nobles,  and  Parliament,  and  a  haughty 
people.  They  must  prove  the  fallacy  of  the  divine  right 
of  kings  on  the  battle-field.  Only  one  great  inspiration  can 
possess  at  a  time  a  man  or  a  people.  This  broad  platform 
must  rest  on  the  head  of  king  and  slaveholder,  but  it  must 
be  planted  on  that  of  the  king  first,  as  the  most  imminent 
and  dangerous  foe.  Hence  the  revolutionary  struggle  and 
victory. 

When  they  had  emerged  from  that  conflict — when  George 
the  Third  saluted  George  Washington,  and,  through  him, 
the  American  people,  as  his  perfect  equal,  then  came  a 
second  duty  —  to  preserve  this  equality  among  themselves. 
How  perilous  was  their  state  you  can  faintly  conceive,  by 
seeing  how  all  classes  have  just  been  swept  into  the  current 
of  an  unnatural  reverence  for  the  youthful  heir  of  that 
throne. 


ELECTION   OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN.  189 

These  patriots  were  born  royalists.  A  vast  proportion 
of  the  people  were,  in  feeling  and  theory,  royalists.  Every 
city  was  full  of  wealth  and  fashion  thus  devoted.  If  Eng- 
land's royalty  and  nobility  were  expelled,  might  not  Amer- 
ica substitute  one  of  her  own  ?  Italy  has  just  proved  the 
passion  of  a  people  for  a  king.  Mazzini  and  Garibaldi  had 
to  yield  to  Victor  Emanuel,  republicanism  to  royalty.  So 
might  it  have  been  here.  Our  fathers  saved  us  by  self- 
denial.  It  was  a  greater  work  to  deliver  themselves  from 
themselves  than  from  England.  "  Greater  is  he  that  ruleth 
his  spirit  than  he  that  taketh  a  city." 

Every  member  of  that  Constitutional  Convention  could 
have  had  an  American  title  of  nobility.  Lands  for  the  sup- 
port of  the  title  were  far  more  abundant  than  William's 
barons  found  them  in  England  in  the  eleventh  century.  The 
leaders  of  the  people,  Washington,  Hamilton,  Adams,  and 
Jefferson,  would  have  been  of  the  blood  royal,  or  next  the 
throne.  They  saw  the  peril.  They  must  meet  it.  They 
did.  They  especially  guarded  against  inequality  of  rank, 
forbade  the  receipt  of  titles  from  foreign  courts,  and  steered 
clear  of  the  currents  that  might  sweep  them  into  that  chan- 
nel —  a  senate  without  pay  or  for  life,  an  executive  for  life 
or  for  a  long  term  of  years.  And  they  consummated  their 
precautions  by  one  of  their  earliest  acts  of  legislation  — 
forbidding  the  increase  of  the  Society  of  the  Cincinnati,  or 
even  its  continuance  among  the  sons  of  the  original  mem- 
bers, as  this  society,  being  composed  of  the  officers  of  the 
Revolution,  might,  through  the  fascination  of  the  military 
spirit,  endanger  their  primal  and  most  vital  idea  —  equality, 
liberty. 

As  we  have  said,  only  one  fever  can  rage  at  a  time,  only 
one  great  duty  be  done  at  once.  Therefore,  while  their 
sympathies  went  out  for  the  slave  population,  while  their 
conscience  told  them  they  should  be  equally  faithful  and 
honest  to  these  as  to  themselves,  their  exhausting  labors 


190  TE   DEUM   LAUDAMUS. 

were  in  another  direction.  They  rested  from  their  labors, 
fondly  hoping  their  children  would  take  up  and  apply  their 
great  principles  to  this  oppressed  people. 

Of  the  chief  revolutionary  patriots,  Franklin  alone  was 
an  avowed  abolitionist.  Jefferson  wrote  against  slavery, 
or  rather  wrote  reflections  upon  it,  but  never  worked  vigor- 
ously for  its  extinction.  Franklin  cast  his  influence  on  that 
side,  probably  more  because  he  dwelt  among  the  liberty- 
loving  Quakers  than  from  an  inherent  passion  of  his  own. 
Washington  disliked  it,  but  when  urged  by  Lafayette  to 
make  the  experiment  of  emancipating  and  hiring  his  ne- 
groes, he  declines  on  account  of  the  embarrassed  state  of 
his  property ;  and  yet  he  died  shortly  after,  leaving  an  estate 
estimated  at  half  a  million  of  dollars,  which  is  more  than  a 
million  at  the  present  valuation  of  money. 

The  fact  must  be  stated,  that,  while  faithful  to  one  half  of 
their  theory,  they  were  practically  indifferent  to  the  other. 
While  abolishing  all  titular  distinctions  and  equalizing  all 
the  white  inhabitants,  they  failed  to  abolish  the  title  of 
slaveholder,  and  to  give  their  colored  brethren  that  which 
was  just  and  equal. 

The  battle  on  this  field  exhausted  all  their  energies.  To 
keep  this  liberty  from  licentiousness,  this  equality  from 
familiarity,  to  preserve  an  aristocracy,  to  sustain  democracy 
against  aristocracy,  to  secure  -state  rights,  to  maintain  the 
federal  unity  and  strength,  —  on  these  important  fields  the 
war  raged,  and  the  servant  of  servants  was  unnoticed  in  his 
servitude  among  the  great  questions  of  social  and  political 
equality  that  so  violently  agitated  the  governing  classes. 

This  work  was  perhaps  as  much  as  one  age  could  do.  It 
was  certainly  more  than  any  one  age  had  previously  done. 
The  men  who  achieved  it  were  more  than  thirty  years  in 
accomplishing  it.  Thomas  Jefferson  wrought  wondrously 
for  the  rights  of  man,  from  1776  to  1809  —  thirty-three 
years  of  most  remarkable  service  in  a  most  remarkable 


ELECTION   OF    ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  191 

cause.  He  was  then  past  sixty  —  an  old  man,  weary  with 
the  cares  of  State  —  not  fit  in  vigor  or  vehemence  for  the 
great  work  of  emancipation.  Failing  to  keep  progressive, 
he  slid  backward,  and  dishonored  his  gray  hairs  by  apolo- 
gizing for  slavery  and  defending  the  Missouri  Compromise. 

The  generation  that  succeeded  them,  as  great  men's  sons 
are  apt  to  be,  were  very  poor  imitators  of  their  illustrious 
fathers.  Most  trees  bear  only  biennially.  Most  genera- 
tions are  under  a  similar  law.  A  great  calm  follows  a  great 
storm.  The  children  of  these  revolutionary  parents  were 
feeble  in  principle,  low  in  moral  tone.  They  were  tired  of 
great  ideas  and  great  deeds.  The  overstrained  nature 
sprang  back  to  the  narrower  range  which  men  naturally 
prefer.  The  leading  men  of  that  age,  men  who  have  just 
left  us,  were  far  below  their  fathers  in  greatness  of  nature, 
and  will  be  incalculably  beneath  them  in  greatness  of  fame. 
Clay,  Calhoun,  Adams,  Webster,  and  Jackson,  its  five  repre- 
sentative men,  present  to  the  historian  no  such  lofty  traits 
of  character  or  service  as  shine  in  the  names  of  five  repi'e- 
sentatives  of  the  preceding  era  —  Washington,  Samuel  Ad- 
ams, Jefferson,  Hamilton,  and  Franklin. 

John  Quincy  Adams  alone  of  his  peers  held  forth  the 
light  that  glowed  in  his  youth.  But  not  he  till  he  had 
descended  from  the  presidential  throne  into  the  vale  of  age 
and  comparative  political  obscurity.  Hardly  a  word  of  his 
can  be  quoted  before  his  seventieth  year,  that  has  the  ring- 
ing sound  of  liberty.  How  different  from  the  young  John 
Adams  in  the  mass  meetings  of  Boston,  the  provincial  Con- 
gress, and  Independence  Hall.  Fortunate  was  he  that  those 
last  few  years  and  that  congressional  opportunity  were 
given  him. 

It  was  an  era  of  the  deadening  of  the  conscience, 
on  the  subject  of  freedom.  Church  and  State  alike  fell 
into  the  slumber.  Political  and  religious  compromises  be- 
came the  order  of  the  day.  The  sentiment  of  the  fathers 


192  TE   DEUM  LAUDAMUS. 

was  against  slavery.  But  sentiment  can  do  nothing  against 
sin.  And  so  the  sons  came  to  endure,  to  pity,  to  embrace 
the  unclean  thing,  and,  from  Calhoun  to  Webster,  fell  down 
and  worshiped  the  abominable  idol  their  pious  fathers  had 
neglected  to  destroy. 

"New  times  demand  new  measures  and  new  men." 

The  new  times  had  arrived.  New  men  and  their  new 
measures  were  not  wanting.  The  third  generation  appears 
on  the  stage  of  action.  The  grandsires  find  their  likeness 
in  their  grandchildren,  not  their  children.  Thirty  years 
passed  from  the  triumph  of  Jefferson  to  that  of  Jackson,  the 
representatives  of  the  ideas  of  their  generations.  Thirty 
years  have  passed  from  the  triumph  of  Jackson  to  that  of 
the  Anti-slavery  sentiment,  not  in  the  person  of  its  recog- 
nized exponent,  but  still  in  the  strength  of  its  mighty  feel- 
ing and  purpose.  These  last  thirty  years  cover  the  era 
of  this  agitation,  cover  the  adult  life  of  the  agitators.  You 
will  find  on  "The  Liberator  "  of  this  year,  "Volume  XXX. : " 
and  this  sheet  has  the  honor  of  initiating  the  movement  in 
this  nation. 

The  conscience  was  aroused  very  slowly.  The  deadly 
slumber  was  pleasant.  Churches,  societies,  parties,  every 
body  disliked  to  be  disturbed.  But  the  young  men  sympa- 
thized Avith  young  Mr.  Garrison  and  his  young  idea.  Young 
Mr.  Seward,  then  emerging  into  public  life,  felt  the  th rob- 
bings of  the  new  inspiration.  Young  Mr.  Phillips  and  Mr. 
Sumner,  then  students  at  Harvard  or  on  their  way  thither ; 
the  youthful  Tappan,  and  Leavitt,  and  Lovejoy,  and  Gid- 
dings,  and  Gerritt  Smith,  caught  the  flame  in  their  fresh 
and  sympathetic  hearts,  and  commenced  kindling  it  in  the 
breasts  of  others.  Dr.  Channing  and  John  Quincy  Adams 
were  almost  the  only  men  of  accomplished  fame  that  in- 
dorsed the  enterprise,  and  they  did  not  publicly  cooperate 
with  its  youthful  managers. 


ELECTION    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  193 

Soon  bitter  conflicts  sprang  up  in  the  breasts  of  these 
young  philanthropists.  The  fresh-armed  men  began  to  bite 
and  devour  one  another,  and  were  well  nigh  consumed  one 
of  another.  Yet  still  the  great  inspiration  moved  on, 
through  them,  in  spite  of  them.  New  measures  were  re- 
quired by  the  progress  of  the  sentiment.  It  demanded  a 
chance  to  express  itself  at  the  ballot-box,  and  began  to 
feebly,  but  faithfully,  reveal  its  power  on  this  field  where  it 
stands  to-day  victorious. 

Thus  steadily  have  advanced  the  conscience  and  the  cause. 
The  vast  majority  of  the  men  of  to-day  have  grown  up  un- 
der its  power ;  for  the  mass  of  men  are  under  forty-five 
years  of  age.  The  impressible  youth  of  fifteen,  who  drank 
of  this  new  wine  when  it  was  first  pressed  from  the  grapes 
of  a  fresh  experience,  is  to-day  the  governor  elect  of  your 
commonwealth.  The  poor  youth  of  twenty,  toiling  in  the 
solitude  of  western  rivers  and  forests,  learning  to  abhor 
slavery  because  of  its  contempt  for  honorable  industry,  is 
to-day  the  civil  leader  of  the  cause  and  country. 

Thus  has  the  principle  which  moved  our  grandsires  to 
the  great  work  of  personal  liberation  moved  us  toward  the 
completion  of  their  work,  in  the  liberation  of  more  persons 
than  their  valor  saved,  from  a  bondage  infinitely  worse  than 
that  which  pressed  them  down. 

2.  But  fears  created  by  the  rapid  march  of  the  slave 
power  have  aided  in  this  work.  The  growth  of  this  power 
has  been  a  necessary  complement  of  the  corresponding 
growth  of  the  abolition  sentiment.  The  Gospel  is  a  savor 
of  life  unto  life  and  of  death  unto  death.  Conscience  is 
one  and  the  same  in  every  man.  But  conscience  trampled 
upon  is  sure  to  revenge  itself  by  allowing  the  passions 
that  expel  it  from  its  seat  to  assume  a  diabolic  sovereignty. 
The  Southern  mind  felt  as  keenly  as  the  Northern  that 
slavery  was  a  sin.  There  was  but  one  testimony  from  the 
whole  land  in  our  early  history,  and  even  as  late  as  the 
13 


194  TE   DEUM  LAUDAMUS. 

beginning  of  this  agitation.  But  when  the  spirit  within 
began  to  be  heard,  saying,  clearly,  "Extirpate  this  evil. 
Let  my  oppressed  go  free,  and  break  every  yoke,"  —self- 
interest  said,  "Nay;  I  shall  impoverish  myself  by  so  doing. 
My  money  is  invested  in  slaves.  My  habits  and  tastes  are 
educated  in  slavery.  My  heart  inclines  to  it."  So  they 
resisted  the  Spirit  of  God.  They  trampled  under  foot  the 
national  life-principle.  They  counted  the  revolutionary  blood 
shed  for  them  an  unholy  thing.  They  turned  and  rent  those 
who  cast  these  pearls  at  their  feet,  and  who  called  upon 
them  to  adorn  themselves  with  their  luster. 

They  began  to  defend  the  system  through  the  press,  in 
the  forum,  on  the  bench,  from  the  pulpit.  They  sought  to 
extend  it.  They  sought  to  open  the  accursed  trade  which 
should  populate  their  wildernesses  with  the  barbaric  merchan- 
dise. They  enthroned  themselves  in  the  national  legisla- 
ture, in  the  presidential  chair,  in  the  supreme  court.  They 
trod  out  freedom  of  the  press,  freedom  of  speech,  almost 
freedom  of  thought,  in  all  the  Slave  States.  They  were  on 
the  point  of  nationalizing  slavery  in  the  Territories,  in  every 
free  State.  Their  children,  fifty  years  hence,  will  not  be- 
lieve their  fathers  zealously  advocated  practices  so  abhor- 
rent to  human  nature. 

There  was  no  real  change  in  the  Southern  conscience. 
That  still  told  them,  "  You  are  verily  guilty  concerning  your 
brother."  "  Slavery  is  the  sum  of  all  villainies."  I  never 
saw  a  slaveholder  who  did  not,  when  he  spoke  his  real  sen- 
timents, make  this  confession. 

A  gentleman  who  long  lived  in  Alabama  told  me  he  had  often 
heard  slaveholders,  worth  a  million  dollars  in  this  property, 
say,  "  The  slaves  have  just  as  much  right  to  their  freedom 
as  I  to, mine."  It  was  this  conscience  that  made  the  whole 
South  shake  with  undisguisable  terror,  when  the}'  heard  that 
hero-martyr  saying  to  their  bondmen,  "  You  are  as  free  as 
I  or  your  master.  Here  is  a  weapon  to  defend  yourself,  if 


ELECTION   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  195 

they  attempt  to  enslave  you.  Here  is  one  who  will  aid 
you  in  using  that  weapon,  if  they  dare  to  attack  you." 
Their  audacious  course  consummated  its  malignity  in  the 
murder  of  that  man,  who,  every  one  of  them  knew,  was  in 
the  right  and  doing  right.  For  they  saw,  however  blind  we 
might  be,  that  he  was  of  the  blood  royal  of  mankind,  most 
of  whom  rule  the  race  from  the  scaffold.  They  felt  that  he 
was  proving  in  this  deed  his  lineal  descent  from  the  patri- 
otic but  defeated  Gracchi,  and  Demosthenes,  and  Wallace, 
and  Hampden,  and  Vane,  and  Russell,  and  Warren.*  But 
time  would  fail  me  to  mention  the  grand  list  of  martyrs  for 
liberty  into  whose  front  ranks  they  beheld  him  enter,  who 
all  died  in  the  faith,  not  inheriting  the  promises. 

This  God-defying  march  of  the  hosts  of  Satan  upon  the 
sacred  institutions,  the  more  sacred  inspirations  of  the  land, 
helped  to  stimulate  the  already  quickening  conscience  of  the 
North.  The  heaviest  eyes  began  to  open  —  the  dullest 
natures  to  stir.  Every  one  whose  heart  throbbed  with  any 
of  the  life  of  their  fathers,  of  their  fathers'  God,  felt  that 
the  evil  must  be  rebuked,  must  be  repressed,  must  be  extir- 
pated, so  far  as  any  constitutional  or  moral  power  could  do 
it.  So  the  Church  and  the  State  have  moved  together,  — 
here  slowly  and  cautiously,  there  boldly  and  manfully, 
everywhere  motion,  everywhere  life,  until  the  mighty 
work  is  wrought  which  puts  our  government,  openly  and 
entirely,  on  the  side  of  Freedom. 

This,  then,  is  the  cause,  this  alone  —  the  Spirit  of  God 
moving  on  the  hearts  of  the  children  of  men.  "  This  is  the 
Lord's  doing,  and  it  is  marvelous  in  our  eyes."  "Not 
unto  us,  0  Lord,  not  unto  us,  but  unto  Thy  name  give 
glory."  The  Lord  hath  triumphed  gloriously.  "  The  horse 
and  his  rider,"  the  Northern  political  slave  and  his  South- 
ern political  master,  "hath  He  cast  into  the  sea." 

*  See  Note  VIII. 


196  TE   DEUM  LAUDAMUS. 

II.  Consider  the  consequences  of  this  victory,  which  is  one 
in  fact,  though  threefold  in  form. 

1.  It  will  suppress  all  efforts  to  extend  slavery.  The 
battle  was  waged  at  this  point.  Here,  too,  was  it  won. 
For  the  first  time  in  all  this  long  conflict  the  hostile  parties 
agreed  as  to  the  object  in  dispute.  Every  previous  Demo- 
cratic Convention  shut  off  the  real  issue  from  the  people. 
The  Whig  and  American  parties,  when  alive,  were  equally 
careful.  Tariff,  banks,  the  Roman  Catholic  question,  re- 
trenchment and  reform,  —  all  these  have  turned  away  the 
gaze  of  the  masses  from  their  real  danger  and  duty.  Mr. 
Douglas  supposed  that  what  had  been  would  still  be,  and 
therefore  attempted  to  get  up  a  war-cry  that  should  mean 
nothing,  while  under  its  delusion  the  people  should  again 
put  in  power  their  haughty  tyrant.  But  the  honesty  of  the 
slave  power  swept  away  this  subterfuge.  They  boldly 
placed  at  the  head  of  their  columns  the  universal  su- 
premacy of  slavery.  The  free  sentiment  hailed  the  conflict. 
The  deadly  embrace  is  passed,  and  slavery  lies  prone  upon 
the  field.  A  tyrant  once  slain  is  slain  forever.  Error  can 
never  survive  its  Waterloo.  Freedom  had  often  fallen,  but 
it  rose  ever  the  more  beautiful  and  strong  from  its  momen- 
tary defeat.  Slavery  has  fallen,  never  to  rise  again  defiant, 
successful.  It  will  rule  in  New  York  and  Boston  before  it 
ever  rules  again  at  Washington.  It  ruled  there  first  only 
by  our  consent.  We  must  rehabilitate  it  at  home  before  we 
allow  it  to  return  thither. 

This  absolute  and  unquestioned  gain  —  the  point,  the 
center  of  the  fight  —  is  almost  incalculable.  Some  speak 
slightingly  of  it,  and  say  nothing  is  done.  The  Fugitive  Slave 
Act  is  recognized  by  President  Lincoln  as  constitutional. 
He  will  favor  the  admission  of  Slave  States  if  they  come 
constitutionally  to  the  door  of  the  nation.  These  are  not 
agreeable  sights.  Yet,  consider  how  unlikely  they  are  to 
occur.  What  Slave  State  will  seek  admission  to  an  Ariti- 


ELECTION   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  197 

Slavery  confederacy  ?  As  for  the  fugitive  from  slavery, 
unless  vital  modifications  are  made  in  the  present  law,  the 
people  will  take  care  that  he  is  not  returned.  Can  one 
here  be  seized,  and  sentenced  to  bondage  again,  as  Anthony 
Burns  was,  passing  down  State  Street  in  broad  daylight, 
fettered  by  a  squad  of  foreign  mercenaries,  when  more  than 
a  hundred  thousand  of  the  citizens  of  Massachusetts  have 
put  the  most  eloquent  defender  of  the  Personal  Liberty  Bill 
in  the  chair  of  State  ? 

The  accursed  oceanic  slave  trade  will  forever  cease.  New 
York  will  be  relieved  from  the  miserable  honor  of  sending 
out  these  vessels,  —  Savannah  and  Charleston,  the  more 
miserable  honor  of  receiving  their  cargoes.  Africa  and 
Cuba  will  be  girdled  with  a  moving  wall  of  fire  through 
which  but  few  of  the  dreadful  craft  can  pass.  If  nothing 
more  were  done  than  is  assuredly  done,  it  is  wonderful,  it 
is  worthy  of  unbounded  thanksgivings. 

2.  But,  secondly,  we  have  done  still  more.  We  have  set 
ourselves  right  before  the  world.  We  shall  cast  our  influ- 
ence, as  a  great  nation,  on  the  side  of  universal  liberty. 
For  years  we  have  been  a  by-word  and  a  hissing  among  the 
nations.  Not  a  word  for  freedom  could  escape  the  lips  of 
our  representatives  abroad,  for  they  were  bound,  hand  and 
foot,  mouth  and  tongue,  with  the  grave-clothes  of  the  body 
of  this  death.  Our  influence  has  been  against  liberty 
everywhere,  in  every  man.  The  conscience  of  the  slave- 
holder, the  conscience  of  the  tyrants  of  France  and  Austria 
and  Rome,  were  stifled  in  the  deadly  air  which  our  govern- 
ment exhaled.  All  this  is  changed.  America  will  stand 
forth  in  the  glory  of  her  earlier,  better  days ;  in  a  glory 
greater  than  that,  for  we  now  appear  as  the  upholder  of  the 
rights  of  every  man,  of  every  hue  and  condition.  Italians 
contend  for  the  rights  of  Italians,  Hungarians  for  Hunga- 
rians, Englishmen  for  Englishmen  ;  we,  alone,  for  the  black 
race,  the  weakest  and  least  favored  of  the  children  of 


198  TE   DEUM   LAUDAMUS. 

Adam.  Napoleon  boasted  that  he  went  to  war  for  an  idea. 
We  fought  for  vastly  more,  —  the  foundation  principle  of 
humanity,  —  the  oneness  of  man  in  blood  and  destiny. 

This  influence  is  worth  everything.  It  is  irrepressible, 
it  is  unavoidable.  The  acts  and  words  of  the  Administra- 
tion will  be  most  careful  and  moderate,  but  this  power  it 
cannot  repress.  It  is  an  Anti-slavery  Government.  It  was 
created  because  it  was  anti-slavery.  This  word  assures  us 
that  a  new  life  is  breathed  into  the  soul  of  the  nation.  It 
will  thrill  with  its  enthusiasm  every  section  of  the  land, 
every  corner  of  the  globe.  Distracted  Mexico  will  now 
turn  entreating  .eyes  upon  us,  certain  to  see  no  wolfish  leer 
in  our  gaze,  hungering  to  reduce  her  citizens  to  slaves. 
The  South  American  Republics  will  sit  at  our  feet,  and  fol- 
low our  footsteps  in  the  upward  march  to  perfect  freedom. 
Hayti  will  stand  at  our  Capitol  among  the  great  nations,  its 
representative  sitting  with  those  of  England  and  France,  in 
the  seats  of  ambassadorial  dignity  and  equality.*  Italy,  and 
France,  and  England,  will,  as  never  before,  admire  and  imi- 
tate the  mistress  of  nations,  sitting  in  the  glory  of  univer- 
sal liberty  on  the  highest  seat  of  earthly  authority. 

What  is  better  than  all,  the  sweet,  summer  morning  air 
of  freedom  will  once  more  steal  over  the  hot  and  arid  plains 
of  Southern  despotism.  Blowing  from  the  whole  North, 
through  Washington,  through  the  Executive  mansion,  it 
will  nerve  with  vigor  many  a  soul  now  paralyzed  with  fear. 
The  minister  of  Christ,  who  has  there,  for  these  many  years, 
denied  his  Master,  will  weep  bitterly,  and  speak  earnestly 
against  the  fearful  crime  that  has  so  long  cursed  the  Church 
and  his  own  soul.  Literature  will  feel  it.  Southern  Whit- 
tiers  will  arise,  who  shall  make  her  hills  and  glades  echo 
with  their  trumpet  blasts  of  denunciation,  their  trumpet 
calls  to  the  conflict  and  the  victor}7.  Mrs.  Stowes  will 

*  The  representative  of  Hayti  was  admitted  in  the  first  year  of  Pres- 
ident Lincoln's  administration. 


ELECTION   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  199 

spring  from  their  own  soil,  who  will  portray  the  evils  and 
wrongs  of  their  cherished  "institution,"  the  duty  and  bless- 
edness of  universal  emancipation,  in  colors  that  shall  out- 
shine their  marvelous  prototype,  because  they  will  be  drawn 
from  personal  experiences,  and  filled  with  the  enthusiasm 
that  only  such  experiences  can  inspire.  The  whole  people 
will  be  made  alive  with  the  mighty  wind,  blowing  from  the 
hills  of  God  over  their  fields  of  dry  bones,  and  they  shall 
stand  upon  their  feet,  an  exceeding  great  army,  for  freedom. 

What  is  already  seen  on  the  northern  border  of  the  black 
abyss  will  be  seen  everywhere.  St.  Louis  gives  almost 
ten  thousand  votes  for  liberty,  as  many  as  Boston,  and, 
better  than  Boston,  with  these  votes  sends  a  bold  and  ear- 
nest abolitionist  to  the  national  councils.  Baltimore  gives 
over  a  thousand  votes  for  freedom,  — as  many  as  the  whole 
State  of  Massachusetts  gave  twenty  years  ago.  That  thou- 
sand has  become  a  hundred  thousand  here  in  a  score  of  years. 
It  will  become  that  there  ere  half  that  time  has  passed. 
In  every  Southern  city,  even  Charleston,  the  worst,  will  be 
found  representatives  of  an  anti-slavery  government.  In 
every  State,  papers  will  be  advocating  its  principles  ;  in 
every  heart,  the  Spirit  of  God,  which  is  liberty,  will  assert 
its  claims,  be  acknowledged  and  obeyed.  Soon  that  Ser- 
pent shall  be  bound,  shall  be  hurled  into  the  bottomless  pit, 
shall  disappear  from  this  first  and  best  of  lands,  and,  with 
it,  from  the  earth,  forever. 

3.  For  this  glorious  victory  assures  the  speedy  abolition 
of  slavery.  I  say  speedy,  not  with  a  few  months,  or  a 
Presidential  term,  in  view,  but  with  only  a  few  years,  in 
comparison  with  its  long  life  and  wide  dominion. 

The  knell  of  slavery  was   struck  last  year  in  the  heroic 

deed,   and   more  heroic   death,  of  John  Brown.      He   first 

shook  the  tottering  Bastile  to  its  foundations.     It  had  been 

riddled,  it  had  been  undermined,  but  it  had  not  rocked  on 

1  its  base  till  he  put  his  hand  upon  it.     It  reeled  to  and  fro 


200  TE   DEUM  LAUDAMUS. 

like  a  slave  ship  in  a  storm,  and  well  nigh  foundered,  then. 
I  have  frequently  mentioned  this  event  with  words  of  ap- 
proval such  as  but  few,  probably,  in  this  audience  will 
reecho.  It  is  proper,  therefore,  that  I  should  pause,  and 
give  a  brief  reason  for  my  opinions.  Our  witty  neighbor 
says  the  millennium  is  near  at  hand,  — 

"  When  preachers  tell  us  all  they  think." 

I  have  not  shunned  to  declare  to  you  the  whole  counsel 
of  God  on  the  highest  of  our  duties.  I  shall  not  play  the 
hypocrite  now.  Allowing  the  largest  liberty  of  opinion  to 
others,  I  claim  equal  liberty  for  myself.  I  know  how  the 
tide  of  misconception  and  condemnation  still  sets  against 
Captain  Brown.  I  know  that  the  "  Tribune  "  and  "  Inde- 
pendent,"—  anti-slavery  journals  of  deserved  influence,— 
still  speak  of  his  attempt  as  a  "  raid"  —a  term  of  disparage- 
ment, if  not  of  reproach.  I  know  Mr.  So  ward  said  he  was 
"justly  hanged."  I  know  that  many  cry  out  with  horror  at 
the  bare  idea  of  putting  weapons  in  the  hands  of  the  slaves, 
to  maintain  their  freedom,  and  say  that  he  that  apologizes 
for  such  an  act  defiles  his  sacerdotal  garments,  and  is  be- 
come a  companion  with  murderers. 

But,  on  the  other  hand,  I  see  how  Victor  Hugo  and  the 
other  great  and  pure  patriots  of  Europe  can  find  no  words 
to  express  their  admiration  of  the  deed  and  its  doer.* 
Struggling  in  chains  of  despotism  at  home,  they  know  how 
-  to  appreciate  the  intense  humanity  of  one  who  strove  not 
to  save  himself,  but  others,  from  a  far  worse  tyranny  than 
crushes  them  down.  I  see  Hayti,  the  only  really  inde- 
pendent and  enterprising  African  State,  hailing  the  man 
with  a  spontaneous  reverence  and  admiration,  and  out  of 

*  In  the  winter  of  the  execution,  Victor  Hugo  etched  and  published 
with  his  autograph  a  print  of  John  Brown  on  the  gallows,  hanging  in 
thick  darkness,  with  only  a  slight  gray  light  falling  on  the  head.  It  had 
ji  great  sale  in  Paris. 


ELECTION    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  201 

her  poverty  sending  to  his  family  thousands  of  dollars  as  a 
token  of  her  gratitude.  I  see  the  strong  arm  of  Massa- 
chusetts wielding  a  sword,  while  she  pronounces  the  sen- 
tence first  uttered  by  the  slaughtered  patriot,  Algernon 
Sydney,  which  might  have  been  properly  emblazoned  on 
John  Brown's  banners,  "  Ense  petit  placidam  sub  libertate 
quietem  " —  "  She  seeks,  with  the  sword,  serene  quiet  under 
liberty."  Virginia's  motto  should  also  shine  there.  That 
stately  maiden,  with  her  foot  on  a  prostrate  and  fiendish  foe, 
with  "Sic  semper  tyrannis"  —"Thus  always  may  it  be  to 
tyrants,"  —encircling  her  victorious  brow, — how  happily 
it  answers  to  his  creed  and  career !  Surely  what  Massachu- 
setts and  Virginia  have  put  upon  their  seals  may  be  put 
into  action  against  the  worst  tyrant  that  ever  desecrated 
American  soil  or  trampled  on  American  hearts.  The  maiden, 
called  Liberty  and  Humanity,  is  under  the  hoof  of  the  fiend. 
God  will  bless  him  who  rescues  her,  and  puts  his  heel  on  the 
head  of  the  destroyer. 

There  is  nothing  in  human  nature,  human  history,  or  the 
Word  of  God,  that  rebukes  this  sentiment.  The  gospel  of 
Peace  does  not  always  require  of  its  disciples  non-resistance 
to  every  form  of  revolting  oppression,  but  sometimes  de- 
mands of  them  a  stern  resistance  even  "  unto  blood,  striv- 
ing against  sin." 

The  Savior  himself,  among  his  last  injunctions,  commands 
those  of  His  disciples  who  had  no  sword,  to  sell  their  tunic, 
or  chief  garment,  and  buy  one  ;  thereby  clearly  teaching 
us  that  the  clothing  needful  for  the  protection  of  our  bodies 
is  not  to  be  esteemed  above  the  means  of  defending  our  liber- 
ties and  our  lives.  This  enterprise,  as  we  understand  it, 
sought  to  put  the  sword  in  the  hands  of  the  slave,  only 
that  he  might  defend  his  God-given  freedom  against  his 
enslavers.  So  deep  and  universal  is  the  conviction  of  this 
right,  that  had  the  people  whom  he  strove  to  deliver  been 
of  our  own  race,  or  even  of  any  race  but  the  African,  that 


202  TE   DEUM  LAUDAMUS. 

we  hold  in  such  inhuman  contempt,  there  would  have  been 
no  more  question  as  to  the  rightfulness  of  the  enterprise  than 
there  was  to  the  many  unsuccessful  attempts  of  our  fathers 
to  release  their  brethren  from  the  far  less  terrible  slavery  in 
which  they  were  held  by  the  corsairs  of  Algiers. 

In  the  light  of  these  facts  and  principles,  I  find  no  con- 
demnation for  this  man  or  his  deed.  In  the  light  of  its 
influence  on  the  hideous  wrong  it  assailed,  I  see  much  in 
it  to  approve.  I  cannot  but  conclude,  therefore,  that  the 
words  of  censure  so  rife  at  present  are  the  offspring  of  long- 
indulged  prejudice,  or  when  uttered  by  some  of  our  wise 
leaders,  have  been  prompted  either  by  an  unwise  desire  to 
commend  the  anti-slavery  chalice  to  the  lips  of  slaveholders, 
by  removing  some  of  the  bitter  but  essential  ingredients 
that  strengthen  the  potion,  or  else  by  the  temptations  of 

ambition,  — 

"  That  last  infirmity  of  noble  minds." 

In  either  case  they  will  yet  be  regretted  more  than  any 
other  of  their  utterances. 

If  this  be  called  fanaticism,  I  am  content  to  bear  the 
imputation.  I  am  not  alone  in  this  State,  however  it  may 
be  elsewhere,  if  the  late  election  truly  expresses  the  senti- 
ment of  the  people.  The  election  to  the  governorship,  by 
the  largest  vote  any  candidate  ever  received,  of  the  man 
who,  more  than  all  others,  labored  to  save  him  from  that 
"just"  death,  who  publicly  indorsed  his  character,  if  not 
the  abstract  rightfulness  of  the  attempt,  —  such  an  elevation 
of  his  best  friend  to  our  best  office  is  a  strong  evidence 
that  our  common  sense  and  common  humanity  are  getting 
the  better  of  our  fears  and  prejudices.  The  hated  Mordecai 
already  descends  here,  from  the  gallows  of  public  con- 
demnation on  which  the  Haman  of  a  subtle  prb-slaveryism 
had  hung  him,  and  rides  through  our  streets  in  the  royal 
apparel  of  executive  sovereignty,  as  the  man  whom  the 


ELECTION   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  203 

people  delighteth  to  honor.  As  if  to  show  that  this  re- 
markable act  of  the  people  of  Massachusetts  was  not  the 
blind  following  of  blind  political  leaders,  but  a  silent  yet 
real  voice  of  approval,  her  favorite  lyric  poet  comes  forth 
and  places  a  garland  of  exquisite  beauty  and  perfume  on 
the  grave  of  the  hero.  Under  the  influence  of  his  religious 
training,  the  Quaker  Whittier  cast  upon  his  coffin  a  hastily 
gathered  wreath  of  bitter  herbs.  But  true  also  to  the  fun- 
damental principles  of  his  faith,  through  the  influences  of 
the  events  and  reflections  of  the  past  year,  he  has  discov- 
ered the  "  Inner  Light"  of  superior  truth,  and  with  charac- 
teristic frankness,  has  published  the  revelations  of  that  Light. 
A  late  poem,  written  on  the  liberation  of  Italy,  by  its  own 
confession,  covers  the  whole  ground  of  the  present  contro- 
versy. The  laurel  which  he  places  on  Garibaldi's  brow, 
he  hangs  alike  on  John  Brown's  tomb.  Hear  the  sentiment 
of  almost  every  .Christian  in  these  true  and  tender  and  solemn 
words  :  — 

'  I  dreamed  of  Freedom  slowly  gained 

By  Martyr  meekness,  patience,  faith, 

And  lo,  an  athlete  grimly  stained, 

With  corded  muscles  battle-strained, 

Shouting  it  from  the  field  of  death  ! 
*  #  *  *  * 

I  know  the  pent  fire  heaves  the  crust ; 
That  sultry  skies  the  bolt  will  form 
To  smite  them  clear ;  that  nature  must 
The  balance  of  her  powers  adjust, 
Though  with  the  earthquake  and  the  storm. 

And  who  am  I,  whose  prayers  would  stay 
The  solemn  recompense  of  time, 
And  lengthen  Slavery's  evil  day 
That  outraged  Justice  may  not  lay 
Its  hand  iipon  the  sword  of  crime ! 

God  reigns,  and  let  the  earth  rejoice ! 
I  bow  before  His  sterner  plan. 
Dumb  are  the  organs  of  my  choice ; 
He  speaks  in  battle's  stormy  voice, 
His  praise  is  in  the  wrath  of  man !  " 


204  TE   DEUM  LAUDAMUS. 

If  the  violent  act  of  one  man  thus  paralyzed  this  iniquity, 
much  more  will  the  peaceful  act  of  two  millions  tend  to  its 
annihilation.  Our  righteous  and  gentle  course  will  not  be 
instantly  answered  in  a  similar  spirit.  It  may  at  first,  it 
undoubtedly  will,  intensify  the  rage  that  already  burns  in  the 
Southern  breast,  seven-fold  hotter  than  it  did  aforetime.  In 
this  rage  they  will  gnash  upon  us  with  their  teeth,  will  seek 
to  frighten  us,  by  financial  crises  and  threats  of  secession, 
into  submission.  Let  us  not  be, alarmed.  Let  but  Wall 
Street  look  on  and  hold  on,  calm  and  cool,  as  Menelaus  did 
when  Proteus  sought  to  elude  him  by  assuming  terrifie 
shapes  and  making  beastly  noises,  and  the  monster  now,  as 
then,  will  become  tame  and  humble.  Our  greatest  danger 
is  in  the  cowardice  of  the  moneyed  power.  The  Church  is 
getting  ready  to  do  her  part.  Politics  is  doing  hers,  and 
now  the  third  of  our  social  forces  must  do  hers.  If  she 
fails,  if  she  whines  and  grows  pallid,  and  begs  her  dear  slave- 
holding  brethren  to  desist,  and  promises  Northern  repentance 
and  its  meet  works,  she  will  only  encourage  them  in  their 
course.  She  can  never  change  the  course  of  the  Republic. 
Freedom  is  more  than  trade,  liberty  than  wealth.  Our 
fathers  have  said  so  twice.  We  shall  not  fail  to  repeat  the 
word,  if  it  must  be  spoken.  ' 

The  poor  slave  will  also  burn  in  the  hot  breath  of  this  fiery 
furnace.  The  master  fears  his  slave  more  than  he  hates  the 
North.  He  will  feel  the  scourge  of  that  fear.  It  is  one  of 
the  necessities  of  tyrants  that  they  can  preserve  their  power, 
and  even  their  life,  only  by  the  frequent  deaths  of  their 
enslaved  subjects.  In  Sicilian  prisons,  Neapolitan  dungeons, 
Roman  inquisitions,  every-where,  every-when,  has  triumphant 
siri  taught  us  that  this  necessity  is  laid  upon  it.  So  it  is 
now  where  this  worst  of  sins  holds  completest  sway.  No 
dungeon  of  Venice  or  Rome  or  Naples  ever  vied  with  Caro- 
lina prisons  or  Alabama  plantations  in  the  excruciating 
cruelty  which  the  helpless  victims  of  their  fear  and  hate 


ELECTION   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  205 

receive  at  J-heir  hands.  When  the  secrets  of  this  prison- 
house  shall  be  revealed,  you  will  cease  to  wonder  at  the 
tortures  of  Messina  and  Palermo.  No  woman  suffered  there, 
only  a  few  score  of  men.  Here  tenderest  women  suffer  such 
cruelty  daily,  as  hard-hearted  heathen  Rome,  the  most  cruel 
of  the  ancient  nations,  would  have  shrunk  from  inflicting1. 
Read  Olmstead's  late  "  Tour  through  the  Back  Country," 
and  you  will  find  incidents  of  these  tortures,  inflicted  so 
coolly  and  carelessly,  as  show  them  to  be  a  common  matter 
of  daily  and  indifferent  outrage.  But  he  never  saw  the 
slave  roasting  at  the  stake.  He  never  saw  the  fierce  blood- 
hounds tearing  in  pieces  the  tender  flesh  of  fainting  women. 
He  never  saw,  as  a  friend  of  mine  did,  himself  once  a  slave- 
holder, a  frantic  mother  torn  from  a  nursing  babe,  less  than 
a  year  old,  and  dragged  shrieking  down  the  public  street  of 
a  Missouri  village,  by  men  who  bore  Christian  names  and  a 
white  skin,  and  were,  not  unlikely,  born  in  Puritan  New 
England,  of  pious  parents. 

"  On  horror's  head  horrors  accumulate," 
We  emerge  from  the  dungeon  so  full  of 

"  Horrid  shapes  and  shrieks  and  sights  unholy," 

and  breathe  the  upper  air  of  liberty,  with  the  feeling  of  an 
angel  who  had  escaped  from  Pandemonium  revelry  and  out- 
rage into  the  pure  society  of  the  blessed.  Alas !  unlike  the 
angel,  we  do  not  leave  only  sinners  and  damned  spirits  be- 
hind us,  rioting  in  their  willing  wickedness,  but  pure  and 
lovely  souls,  pure  as  the  spirits  of  the  just  made  perfect, 
lovely  as  their  angels,  who  do  always  behold  the  face  of 
their  Father  which  is  in  heaven  :  these  we  leave  behind, 
suffering  such  shame,  such  sorrow,  such  anguish  of  body 
and  of  soul,  as  only  God  can  relieve,  only  He  can  avenge. 

Thank  God,  that  worse  than  hell  shall  be  swept  from  the 
earth.     The  Administration   may  not,  will  not,  directly,  aid 


206  TE  DEUM  LAUDAMUS. 

it.  The  party  in  power  is  forbidden  to  do  it  —  rightfully, 
constitutionally  forbidden.  It  can  only  be  done  peacefully 
and  properly  by  themselves.  It  will  be  so  done.  The 
warm  air  of  freedom  gliding  over  all  that  icy  region  will 
relax,  will  dissolve  these  chains.  The  great  example  of 
eighteen  States  of  the  Union,  voluntarily  emancipating 
their  slaves,  or  voluntarily  indorsing  the  act  by  which  the 
nation  rescued  their  domain  from  its  polluting  presence, 
will  not  be  lost  upon  them.  They  have  lost  the  post  of 
master.  They  will  soon  be  willing  to  take  that  of  a  pupil. 
They  will  begin  to  see  as  they  are  seen.  They  have  pom- 
pously proclaimed  to  the  despised  North,  "  I  am  rich  and 
increased  with*  goods,  and  have  need  of  nothing."  They 
will  now  see  that  they  are  "  wretched,  and  miserable,  and 
poor,  and  blind,  and  naked."  They  will  then  come  to  that 
state  of  humility  which  will  incline  them  to  buy  of  us  "gold 
tried  in  the  fire,"  the  gold  of  universal  emancipation,  "  that 
they  may  be  rich,  and  white  raiment,"  the  wedding  robes 
of  liberty  and  holiness,  "  that  they  may  be  clothed,  and  that 
the  shame  of  their  nakedness  do  not  appear."  "  They  will 
anoint  their  eyes  with  the  eye-salve "  of  Northern  pros- 
perity, "  and  will  see."  Thus  learning,  thus  seeing,  the 
generous  spirits  that  now  pant  speechless  in  that  prison  of 
silence  arid  death  will  give  their  heart  a  tongue.  The  free, 
white,  ruling  South  will  speak  everywhere,  and  speak  one 
voice.  Tokens  of  such  coming  utterance  are  already  given. 
North  Carolina  has  spoken  through  the  lips  of  Mr.  Helper 
and  Professor  Hedrick  ;  South  Carolina  hailed  this  reform, 
at  its  inauguration,  in  the  persons  of  her  Grimke's  and  Bris- 
bane ;  and  in  this  very  canvass,  Professor  Lieber,  late  of  her 
University,  has  boldly  denounced  her  treason  and  its  cause, 
and  cast  his  vote  for  freedom.  Kentucky  and  Virginia 
already  pour  forth  consenting  voices,  like  the  volume  and 
the  sound  of  many  waters,  while  Missouri  is  upon  the  verge 
of  planting  the  standard  of  emancipation  on  the  summit  of 
its  Capitol 


ELECTION   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  207 

This  revival  of  Jeffersonian,  of  Washingtonian  abolitionism, 
with  more  than  the  fervor  and  with  more  than  the  practical 
purpose  of  those  reformers,  on  their  own  soil  and  among 
their  own  posterity,  will  sweep  through  the  masses,  and 
one  fire  blaze  in  all  breasts  —  the  celestial  fire  of  universal 
liberty.  The  struggles  of  the  enslaved,  their  sufferings, 
their  deaths  for  personal  freedom,  not  infrequent  and  not 
powerless  even  now,  will  increase,  and  increase  the  zeal  of 
their  generous  advocates  ;  and  ere  the  hundredth  anniver- 
sary of  our  nation's  birth  is  reached,  — the  Fourth  of  July, 
1876,  —  we  shall  have  completed  the  work  undertaken  at 
our  beginning.  The  bell  that  rang  out  the  first  birthday  in 
the  ears  of  all  the  nations,  will  ring  out  its  first  centennial 
with  the  prophetic  words  inscribed  upon  it,  "  Proclaim 
Liberty  throughout  all  the  land  to  ALL  the  inhabitants  thereof" 
—  no  longer  prophecy  to  be  accomplished  by  a  long  and 
perilous  and  bloody  path,  but  blessed,  unchanging  history. 

We  have  given  it  a  long  lease  of  power,  brief  as  it  may 
appear  to  you,  in  allowing  four  presidential  terms  to  pass 
before  it  disappears.  But  we  know  that  three  thousand 
millions  of  property  are  not  to  be  destroyed  in  an  instant, 
except  by  a  bloody  uprising.  We  hope  and  pray  that  there 
may  be  no  such  reprisals.  It  may  go  down  by  a  bloodless 
revolution.  Garibaldi  has  shown  how  nearly  bloodless  an 
insurrection  may  be  in  this  age  of  the  world.  Had  there 
been  no  standing  armies  in  Sicily  and  Naples,  they  would 
have  achieved  their  liberty  without  the  sacrifice  of  a  single 
life.  There  are  no  standing  armies  in  the  Slave  States.  A 
Garibaldi  from  the  enslaved  race  may  secure  their  libera- 
tion without  the  shedding  of  a  drop  of  blood.  God  grant 
that  it  may  be  so.* 

*  The  statement  of  Mr.  Buchanan,  in  his  late  Message,  that  the  slaves 
are  becoming  "uneasy,"  is  a  most  remarkable  confession  of  a  most  im- 
portant witness.  This  uneasiness  exists  more  in  the  Gulf  States  than  on 
the  border.  For  the  latter  gets  rid  of  its  dangerous  element  through 


208  TE  DEUM  LAUDAMUS. 

But  we  look  more  to  the  liberal  action  of  the  white  race 
than  to  any  violent  action  of  the  black.  We  shall  see  the 
sentiment  of  the  States  gradually  changing.  Then  their 
policy  will  change.  Law  after  law,  the  worst  first,  will 
be  repealed ;  until,  under  one  grand  impulse  of  conscience, 
they  will  pull  down  the  whole  fabric,  and  the  slave  shall 
stand  beside  his  master,  his  free  and  acknowledged  equal. 

All  this  will  not  take  place  without  such  commotion  as 
we  have  not  yet  seen  nor  dreamed  of.  Threats  of  disunion, 
and  probably  a  brief  indulgence  in  that  suicidal  remedy,  will 
be  made  by  the  more  insane  of  the  maniacs.  We  have  seen 
some  agitation  at  the  North,  in  the  last  thirty  years  ;  some 
mobs  and  murders  have  desecrated  the  Free  States  in  their 
endeavors  to  relieve  themselves  from  the  influence  alone  of 
slavery.  What  will  not  that  bloody  power  do  in  a  life-and- 
death  struggle  which  is  now  to  arise  in  its  own  dominions, 
where  it  has  held  unquestioned  and  unlimited  sway  for  two 
hundred  years  ?  The  war  has  passed  from  the  North  to  the 
South,  and  the  thirty  thousand  votes  just  cast  there  for  lib- 
erty show  that  the  war  will  not  cease,  come  what  may,  fall 
who  may,  till  that  twelve  millions  are  delivered  from  their 
few  hundred  thousand  masters,  and  freedom  of  every  kind,  for 
every  man,  shall  be  the  glad  possession  of  the  whole  people. 

This  must  be  the  work  of  time.  Yet  the  change  is  rapid 
from  daybreak  to  dawn  ;  more  rapid  and  brief  from  dawn  to 
sunrise.  And  when  the  sun  rises,  darkness  flees  to  its  caves, 

the  two  outlets  of  Southern  trade  and  the  underground  railroad.  These 
Northern  slaves,  that  have  been  sold  South  because  they  were  unman- 
ageable, are  united  with  the  superior  native  slaves  of  that  section,  who. 
if  on  the  border,  would  escape  to  Canada.  These  violent  and  restless 
men,  kept  from  liberty  by  a  wall  five  hundred  miles  thick,  will,  in  time, 
in  the  very  nature  of  things,  rise  upon  their  masters.  These  masters, 
by  their  madness,  are  tempting  the  insurrection.  There  is  the  fire, 
there  the  powder.  If  an  explosion  comes,  it  will  come  there  first.  God 
grant  the  masters  may  escape  the  terrible  danger  by  immediate  prepa- 
ration for  ultimate,  if  not  instant,  emancipation. 


ELECTION   OF    ABRAHAM    LINCOLN.  209 

though  a  few  shadows  may  linger  among  the  rays  till  the 
midday  brightness  burns  them  up.  So  will  it  be  with  this 
cause.  The  day  is  breaking.  A  gray  light  streaks  across 
the  darkened  heavens.  The  next  presidential  election  will 
bring  the  rosy  dawn  that  will  send  its  warm  flush  athwart 
the  whole  horizon.  The  third  will  be  the  perfect  sunrise. 
The  fourth  the  noontide  glory,  that  shall  consume  every  ray 
of  slavery  blackness  that  has  lain  so  thick  and  heavy  across 
the  nation's  sky. 

Let  us  rejoice.  Let  us  shout  for  joy.  Oppression  shall 
not  always  reign.  Oppression  has  ceased  to  reign  in  its 
highest,  strongest  seat.  It  will  soon  abandon  its  lower 
thrones  of  State  sovereignty,  cast  down  headlong  by  the 
people  whom  it  has  so  long  deluded  and  betrayed.  It  will 
then  flee  from  those  private,  domestic  seats  of  tyranny,  upon 
the  multitude  of  which  the  fifteen  seats  of  State  authority 
have  been  erected,  upon  which  fifteen,  faithfully  knit  to- 
gether, the  throne  of  their  national  power  has  been  elevated. 
An  aroused  people  will  extirpate  it  from  these  obscure,  but 
central  seats,  and  the  gigantic  sin  that  swells  vast  to  heaven, 
will  flee  from  the  earth  to  its  native,  nethermost  hell. 

Let  us  prajr  for  this  hour ;  let  us  labor  for  it  in  all  right- 
eous and  loving  ways.  Our  real  work  is  just  begun.  We 
have  only  broken  down  a  barrier  that  opposed  our  march. 
That  march  must  yet  be  made.  We  have  only  compelled 
the  haughty  transgressors  to  listen.  Our  entreaties,  our 
warnings,  our  encouragements  are  yet  to  be  poured  into  the 
opened  ear.  We  have  only  attained  the  outmost  edge  of 
the  broad  table-land  of  free  discussion.  The  high  land  must 
yet  be  traveled.  Remember  that  this  deed  is  nothing  un- 
less it  bring  forth  fruit  better  than  itself.  The  object  upon 
which  we  must  fix  our  eye,  the  prize  that  must  be  won,  the 
goal  that  must  be  reached,  is  the  abolition  of  slavery,  THE 

LIBERATION    OF    EVERY    SLAVE. 

Let  us  discuss,  in  a  spirit  of  prudence  and  liberality,  every 
14 


210  TE   DEUM   LAUDAMUS. 

measure  that  seeks  this  end.  Let  us  bring  every  reason 
that  worldly  success,  humane  sentiment,  or  religious  obliga- 
tion can  suggest  to  bear  upon  the  hearts  of  their  masters. 
Let  us  aid  those  who  are  anxious  to  be  released  from  this 
relation  out  of  the  abundant  wealth  of  the  North,  that  they 
may  not  be  kept  from  this  duty  by  the  gaunt  form  of  pov- 
erty staring  them  in  the  face,  and  certain  to  be  their  portion, 
if  they  strip  themselves  of  all  their  inherited,  though  un- 
righteous possessions.  Let  us,  at  least,  assist  them,  if  they 
need,  or  will  receive,  no  remuneration  for  the  discharge  of 
their  duty,  by  providing  for  these  emancipated  brethren  a 
home  on  free  soil,  which  they  cannot  enjoy  on  the  slave.  We 
must  bring  our  money  to  bear  upon  this  sin,  if  we  would  see 
it  peacefully  die.  Let  us  do  it  wisely,  generously,  speedily., 

Let  us  especially  feel  for  the  slave.  The  lot,  the  loss 
of  the  master  is  nothing  to  his.  His  is  a  hapless,  horrible 
fate.  Never  forget  him.  In  your  morning  prayers  remem- 
ber him  upon  whom  the  morning  breaks  only  to  light  him 
to  his  rewardless  tasks.  When  gathering  round  the  family 
altar  and  the  family  table,  pity  those  who  have  no  such  com- 
forts. At  your  evening  devotions  pray  for  those  who  go  to 
cheei'less  couches,  bowed  down  with  dreadful  memories  and 
more  dreadful  fears.  Remember  that  the  Lord  had  these 
sufferers  before  Him,  ho  less  than  His  chosen  people,  when 
He  said,  "  This  is  a  people  robbed  and  peeled ;  they  are  all 
of  them  snared  in  holes,  and  they  are  hid  in  prison-houses  ; 
they  are  for  a  prey,  and  none  delivercth  ;  for  a  spoil,  and 
none  saith,  fiestore!"  Never,  never  forget  them.  They 
are  your  brothers  and  sisters.  They  shall  stand  in  equal 
liberty  with  you,  delivered  by  the  right  arm  of  Him  who 
saved  your  fathers,  and  who  has  just  cast  down  their  leagued 
oppressors  from  their  lofty  seats. 

What  a  day  that  day  of  deliverance  will  be,  —  the  great 
and  acceptable  day  of  the  Lord,  —  a  day  sure  to  come  ;  a 
day,  I  believe,  soon  to  come  !  Behold  that  vast  and  beauti- 


ELECTION   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  211 

ful  region,  from  the  peaceful  Ohio  to  the  sunny  Gulf,  from 
the  swift  Mississippi  to  the  raging  Atlantic,  as  it  now  rests 
under  the  gloom  of  this  awful  sin.  All  the  refinements,  all 
the  enterprises  of  civilized  life,  pause  at  its  borders,  or  creep 
feebly  through  it,  like  solitary  star-rays  through  midnight 
clouds.  The  magnificent  landscape  is  rarely  cheered  with 
the  flying  train,  rarely  adorned  with  the  lovely  hamlet,  the 
prosperous  village,  the  mighty  city.  The  church  lifts  but 
seldom  its  defiled  hand  to  heaven,  and  lifts  that  hand  only 
to  point  to  the  judgment  of  God  on  its  fearful  sin  in  compel- 
ling the  bride  of  Christ  to  commit  adultery  with  Belial.  No 
school-house  appears,  full  of  the  neighborhood's  children,  no 
farms  trodden  by  their  humble,  but  independent,  owners  ; 
no  culture,  prosperity,  piety.  The  sight  most  frequent  is 
the  miserable  slave  toiling  with  barbaric  implements  in  the 
rudest  forms  of  menial  service  ;  or  the  more  miserable  white 
man,  degraded  beneath  the  slave  he  despises,  idle,  intemper- 
ate, ignorant,  and  brutal. 

Thus  stands  that  vast  land  to-day.  Let  the  hour  come 
for  which  we  are  praying  and  laboring,  to  which  the  great 
deed  of  the  past  week  has  made  the  grandest  stride  that  the 
century  has  seen  ;  let  but  that  hour  come,  when  every  man 
shall  be  free,  and  how  changed  the  spectacle.  The  wilder- 
ness, that  blossoms  like  the  rose  in  wild  fertility,  shall  be 
transformed  into  the  smiling  abode  of  free,  industrious,  in- 
telligent man.  Railroads  shall  rush  through  every  valley, 
bearing  the  famishing  of  all  nations  to  the  rich  treasures 
nature  has  therein  store  for  them.  Beautiful  roads  will  wind 
beside  every  stream,  scale  every  mountain,  pierce  every  for- 
est. Rich  embowered  cottages,  such  as  no  Northern  sun  nor 
soil  can  give,  will  line  every  pathway,  will  cluster  in  frequent 
centers,  will  multiply,  at  brief  intervals,  into  great  commu- 
nities, with  the  gigantic  factories,  and  Avarehouses,  and 
spacious  stores,  and  crowded  streets  of  growing  cities.  The 
school-house,  modest  or  majestic,  as  it  stands  in  village  or 


212  TE   DEUM   LAUDAMUS. 

city,  will  be  filled  with  the  young  of  all  families,  white  and 
black,  as  with  us,  unconscious  of  difference  or  prejudice  ;  alike 
growing  in  knowledge  and  affection.  No  slave-whip  whis- 
tles through  the  resisting  air,  rushing  down  upon  the  shrink- 
ing flesh  of  saintly  woman.  No  agonizing  husbands  and 
wives,  mothers  and  babes,  are  dragged  to  the  market-place, 
and  there  torn,  husband  from  wife,  mother  from  child,  never 
to  meet  again  till  they  appear  together  as  witnesses  on  the 
stand  at  the  bar  of  God  against  these  murderers  of  their 
liberty,  their  love,  their  life.  No  gangs  of  men  and  women, 
silent  and  sad,  move  monotonously  over  the  broad  acres,  to 
the  ceaseless  look  and  lash  of  the  cruel  overseer.  No 
wretched  hovel,  with  its  earthen  floor  and  heap  of  straw,  filled 
for  a  few  short  hours  with  the  half-starved  slaves,  blotches 
the  lovely  landscape.  All  these  are  gone,  and  gone  forever. 

The  white  fields  shall  blossom  under  the  free  and  active 
industry  of  every  class.  Comfort  shall  gladden  every  home. 
Willing  labor  shall  garner  the  soil.  The  free  and  happy, 
busy  and  populous,  wealthy  and  cultivated  North,  shall  cover 
the  whole  land,  and  equal  freedom  and  happiness,  energy 
and  prosperity,  culture  and  piety,  will  be  the  possession  of 
every  man.  Above  all,  the  Church  of  Christ,  the  Divine 
Liberator,  will  point  its  sacred  finger  to  the  Infinite  Lover 
arid  Redeemer  of  all  men,  to  the  everlasting  freedom  of 
heaven.  In  its  walls,  withou|^distinction  of  color  or  con- 
dition, without  negro  pews,  or  negro  galleries,  or  negro 
corners,  all  souls  shall  bow  in  the  loving  unity  of  "  one 
Lord,  one  faith,  one  baptism,"  before  "the  one  God  and 
Father  of  all,  who  is  above  all,  and  through  all,  and  in  all " 
that  love  Him,  equally  and  eternally. 

No  dim  and  distant  prophecy  of  millennial  glory  is  this. 
The  day  is  nigh  at  hand.  It  has  already  dawned.  It  shall 
speedily  arise.  "  Surely  I  come  quickly.  Amen !  Even 
so,  come,  Lord  Jesus  !  " 


LETTEES   FROM   CAMP/ 


I.     TO   ARMS. 

FlRST    GrATHERIXG    OF    THE    STATES. 

STEAMER  ARIEL,  OFF  ANNAPOLIS,        j 
Wednesday,  9  A.  M.,  April  23,  1861.  \ 

NE  always  wishes  to  know  the  condition  of  his 
correspondent.  Let  me  give  you  a  crayon  sketch 
of  this  one.  On  the  after  deck  of  a  California 
steamer,  sitting  on  a  camp-stool,  with  his  sheet 
of  note-paper  on  a  pocket  account-book,  and  the  book  rest- 
ing on  his  knees,  with  a  military  cap  on  his  head,  a 
military  beard  on  his  face,  and  a  military  weapon  peeping 
out  of  his  breast  pocket,  putting  its  possessor  in  far  greater 
peril  than  any  real  or  imaginary  foe,  —  thus  sitteth  the 
sketcher.  His  immediate  surroundings  are  admirably  adapt- 
ed to  habits  of  reflection  and  composition.  Crowding  around 
him  are  soldiers  of  many  uniforms,  and  many  religions  and 
irreligions,  having  two  bonds  of  unity  —  fury  against  the 

*  The  three  following  sections  contain  extracts  from  letters  written 
from  the  army  at  "Washington,  the  Relay  House,  and  Baltimore,  dur- 
ing the  first  three  months  of  the  war,  and  published  in  "  Zion's  Her- 
^ald,"  "  Christian  Advocate,"  and  "  Harper's  Magazine." 

(213) 


214  LETTERS   FROM  CAMP. 

rebels,  and  noisy  welcomes  to  neighboring  troops.  Some 
eight  or  ten  vessels  lie  near  us,  with  troops  from  Rhode 
Island,  New  York,  Philadelphia,  and  Boston,  vociferating 
their  hurrahs  and  "tigers"  across  to  each  other  in  a 
most  enthusiastic  manner.  Outside  of  this  trampling  and 
talking,  singing  and  shouting,  screaming  of  steam  pipes 
and  rattling  of  muskets,  lie  the  quiet  Chesapeake  and  its 
more  quiet  banks.  The  sun  is  preparing  to  give  us  a 
warm  reception,  whatever  the  citizens  may  give.  He 
pours  his  sheets  of  flame  on  the  bay,  and  it  glitters  in  his 
radiance  with  charming  beauty.  It  is  a  beautiful  field  of 
silver,  about  a  mile  wide  here,  but  opening  into  an  area  three 
or  four  miles  wide  a  little  way  below.  The  banks  are  low, 
yet  very  pleasant.  The  grass  is  green,  and  the  trees  are 
clothed  in  that  "mist  of  greenness,"  as  Tennyson  so  hap- 
pily describes  the  intermediate  state  between  leaflessness 
and  leafage. 

A  WAR  NIGHT  IN  FANEUIL  HALL. 

I  have  seen  old  Faneuil  Hall  under  many  excitements  since 
my  first  memory  of  it,  which,  by  the  way,  was  beholding 
General  Jackson  shake  hands  with  Boston  dignitaries.  I 
was  chiefly  anxious,  I  recollect,  then  to  see  the  famous  Major 
Jack  Downing,  and  eagerly  inquired  of  my  Mentor  which 
of  the  attendants  on  the  General  was  the  great  Major. 
Since  that  childish  faith  was  then  arid  there  broken  to  pieces, 
I  have  had  my  faith  broken  or  confirmed  many  times  by  the 
sights  and  sounds  within  its  walls.  But  Faneuil 

"  saw  another  sight, 
When  the  drums  beat  at  dead  of  night." 

My  experience  of  many  delectable  Methodist  camps  had 
trained  me  for  the  enjoyment  of  the  scene.  So  I  lay  on 
a  straw  mattress  under  the  rostrum,  from  whence  I  had 
heard  Webster,  Choate,  Parker,  Smnncr,  Burlingame,  and  a 


TO  ARMS.  215 

host  of  others  thunder,  and  saw  the  sights  in  which  their 
speeches  were  culminating  —  the  bodying  forth  of  their  airy 
nothings.  Troops  marching  and  countermarching,  up  stairs 
and  down  stairs,  bands  playing,  men  whistling  or  singing, 
packing  and  nailing  boxes,  shouting  orders,  going  through 
drills,  —  every  conceivable  noise,  melting  into  one  mighty 
patriotic  symphony.  The  grand  old  eagle  seemed  to  enjoy 
the  scene, — 

"  The  fierce  gray  bird  with  a  bending  beak, 
With  an  angry  eye  and  a  startling  shriek, 
Which  nurses  his  brood  where  the  cliff  flowers  blow." 

How  he  exulted  in  the  daring  of  his  Northern  associates  ! 
On  his  breast  glowed  the  stars  and  stripes,  and  round  his 
talons  waved  the  E  Pluribus  Unum,  not  to  be  changed  to 
Ex  Uno  Plura  by  the  combined  fraud  and  force  of  any  or 
all  the  leagued  oppressors  on  our  Southern  shores.  Below 
the  symbols  of  the  United  States  stood  the  haughty  memo- 
rials of  Massachusetts  sovereignty,  —  her  Indian  and  his 
weapons,  —  and  her  motto,  looking  far  from  "  Algerine,"  in 
this  hour  of  her  quick  response  to  the  call  of  her  country. 

Opposite  these,  the  patriotic  faces  of  Samuel  Adams, 
Washington,  Hancock,  and  Warren,  glowed  with  animated 
enthusiasm  ;•  while,  by  a  sort  of  prophetic  inspiration,  Cal- 
houn  had  been  placed  on  the  walls,  but  covered  with  a  cloud, 
evidently  nursing  his  wrath  with  difficulty,  as  he  saw  the 
formidable  array  to  suppress  his  treasonable  desires  and 
efforts,  and  to  give  the  final  blow  to  his  favorite  Power  as  a 
ruler  in  the  nation. 

Among  the  tunes  were  often  heard,  just  as  I  hear  them 
here  and  now,  the  familiar  songs  of  the  camp-meeting  and 
prayer-meeting.  "  I  am  going  home  to  die  no  more,"  "There'll 
be  no  more  sorrow  there,"  "  We're  bound  for  the  kingdom, 
Will  you  go  to  glory  with  me  ?  "  mingled  with  America  and 
Yankee  Doodle,  showing  how  great  was  the  power  of 
these  melodies  over  the  masses. 


216  LETTERS   FROM   CAMP. 

FIRST  WAR  SUNDAY. 

That  Sabbath  day's  journey  ought  to  be  chronicled.  We 
marched  through  saintly  Boston  in  the  gray  twilight  to  the 
tune  of  Yankee  Doodle.  All  along  the  route,  cannons  and 
bells,  bands  and  flags,  and  waving  handkerchiefs,  soldiers 
and  crowds  upon  crowds,  gave  us  a  hearty  hail  and  fare- 
well. At  Springfield  the  crowd  was  immense  and  enthu- 
siastic. At  Hartford  we  were  told  the  women  were  all  at 
home  driving  their  sewing  machines,  and  the  men  busy  mak- 
ing cartridges  for  their  troops.  Not  a  few,  however,  filled 
the  depot  and  the  track  to  salute  us.  But  Meriden  gave  us 
the  heartiest  welcome.  All  the  town  left  their  churches, 
and  gathered  round  the  depot,  where  they  had  had  preaching 
and  singing  while  waiting  for  us.  They  had  also  provided 
refreshments  enough  for  five  thousand  persons,  and  plied  us 
with  sweetmeats  and  benedictions. 

New  Haven  and  Bridgeport  were  equally  alive  and  multi- 
tudinous in  their  enthusiasm.  At  the  last  place  an  incident 
occurred  which  strikingly,  not  to  say  grotesquely  and  harsh- 
ly, showed  the  fierce  fire  that  glowed  in  every  breast.  A 
man  had  been  killed  the  day  before  while  firing  a  salute  to 
a  company  going  to  Washington.  They  had  his  body 
wrapped  in  American  flags,  in  a  hearse  trimmed  with  flags, 
and  drawn  by  four  white,  dancing  horses,  also  trimmed  with 
flags.  The  force  of  the  fever  could  go  no  farther.  It  did  not 
seem  to  me  that  it  ought  to  have  gone  so  far.  Yet  the  great 
crowds,  the  bands,  cannons,  bells,  soldiers,  and  shouts, 
showed  that  the  people  did  not  seem  to  feel  this  novel  ex- 
pression to  be  exceptional. 

OPENING  THE  WAY  TO  THE  CAPITOL. 

WASHINGTON,  April  23, 1861. 

The  Massachusetts  Eighth  Eegiment  first  reached  Annap- 
olis, and  would  have  first  opened  the  way,  solitary  and 


TO  ARMS.  217 

alone,  to  Washington,  had  not  an  accident  prevented  their 
landing.  One  of  their  officers  informed  me  that  when  they 
reached  Philadelphia  they  heard  of  the  Baltimore  riot,  and 
the  murder  of  their  comrades.  They  left  that  city  expect- 
ing to  follow  their  predecessors  on  the  same  route.  They 
prepared  a  corps  of  sappers  and  miners,  selecting  some  forty 
of  their  most  brave  and  dashing  men  for  this  service.  These 
were  to  head  the  troops,  and,  upon  attack,  spring  into  the 
houses,  set  them  on  fire,  and  otherwise  open,  if  possible,  a 
path  through  the  city.  "  As  they  marched  down  the  streets 
of  Philadelphia,"  said  he,  "  the  lowest  weight  of  any  sol- 
dier was  one  ton,"  so  full  of  weighty  matter  and  solid  cour- 
age were  they.  They  found,  after  a  while,  that  they  were 
going  to  Perryville,  hoping  to  get  possession  of  the  steamer 
there  that  is  connected  with  the  railroad.  They  heard 
that  the  Baltimore  secessionists  held  it,  and  had  no  doubt 
that  they  would  have  to  fight  to  recover  it.  So,  as 
they  drew  near  the  place,  their  guns  were  loaded,  and  their 
names  called,  to  see  if  all  were  present.  As  the  roll  was 
called,  one  of  the  soldiers  said,  "  When  it  is  called  again  we 
shall  not  all  be  here  to  answer."  Tears  rolled  down  many 
cheeks  at  this  remark,  and  at  the  thoughts  which  it  revived 
of  home  and  friends  left  perhaps  forever,  of  the  first  real 
battle  in  which  they  were  about  to  engage,  of  all  the  sud- 
den, strange,  and  terrible  experiences  of  war.  But  they  did 
not  faint  nor  falter.  They  were  children  of  their  fathers,  and 
they  went  forward  cheerfully  to  the  expected  conflict. 

Leaving  their  cars  about  a  quarter  of  a  mile  from  the 
depot,  they  formed  a  line,  with  orders  to  rush  upon  the  ene- 
my, and  force  their  passage  into  the  boat  at  the  point  of  the 
bayonet.  They  found  they  were  as  those  that  beat  the  air. 
The  terrible  enemy  was  not.  They  quietly  took  posses- 
sion of  the  steamer,  and  ran  down  to  Annapolis,  which  they 
reached  about  two  o'clock  on  Sunday  morning,  and  anchored 
off  the  Naval  Academy. 


218  LETTERS   FROM   CAMP. 

Here  occurred  one  of  those  puzzles  which  diplomacy  often 
meets  with.  The  commandant  of  the  Naval  School  had  heard 
that  a  secession  steamer  was  coming  from  Baltimore  to  take 
possession  of  that  spot.  He  had  not  heard  of  the  move-' 
ments  of  this  regiment,  and  supposed,  of  course,  that  this 
steamer  was  the  one  promised  and  dreaded.  On  the  other 
hand,  General  Butler  had  heard  that  the  secessionists  were 
already  in  possession  of  the  Naval  School,  as  well  as  of  the 
city.  A  lieutenant  came  to  the  steamer  to  find  out  who  they 
were.  But  as  he  did  not  like  to  reveal  his  position  to  par- 
ties of  whom  he  was  in  doubt,  and  as  General  Butler  did 
not  choose  to  reveal  his  name  and  purpose,  their  conversa- 
tion was  brief  and  cipherish.  Soon  the  lieutenant  said  he 
must  go,  as  a  signal  had  been  made  for  his  return.  They 
learned  afterward  that  this  signal  was  to  be  given,  after  a 
certain  time  had  elapsed,  so  that  he  might  escape  to  the 
shore,  as  they  should  then  consider  them  secessionists,  and 
open  the  guns  of  the  fort  upon  them.  The  commandant, 
Captain  Blake,  however,  finding  that  his  lieutenant  knew 
nothing,  came  off  himself,  and  he  and  the  general  talked  back 
and  forth  in  the  dark  for  some  time,  till  gradually  they  be- 
gan to  find  out  that  they  could  trust  each  other. 

He  then  asked  for  help  to  get  the  Constitution  into  the 
bay,  as  it  was  exposed  where  it  lay  to  guns  from  the  shore. 
So  the  church-going,  and  many  of  them  church-loving,  citi- 
zens of  Lynn,  Marblehead,  and  their  vicinage,  worked  all 
day  to  cut  out  the  famous  Old  Ironsides.  Their  steamer  ran 
aground  in  the  effort,  and  stuck  there  till  Tuesday  morning. 
They  could  get  no  help,  and  had  no  food  nor  water,  and  some 
of  them,  in  the  fury  of  their  thirst,  drank  the  salt  water  of 
the  bay.  The  midshipmen,  on  learning  of  their  condition, 
brought  water  in  boats  to  their  relief.  They  lay  here  in  groat 
peril,  for  there  were  no  means  of  getting  ashore.  The  peo- 
ple of  Annapolis  knew  of  their  presence,  and  it  was  cur- 
rently stated  that  a  war  steamer  was  coming  from  Bal- 


TO   ARMS.  219 

timore  to  sink  them  —  a  thing  that  could  easily  have  been 
done. 

An  accident  happened  here  that  was  a  strong  confession 
of  the  value  of  religion  to  a  man.  There  was  only  one  boat 
on  the  steamer,  and  the  general  was  afraid  that  one  of  the 
crew,  or  some  traitor  who  might  have  smuggled  himself  on 
board  at  Perryville,  would  take  it,  and  give  information 
to  the  enemy.  So  he  commanded  two  men  to  be  put  in 
charge  of  the  boat,  with  orders,  if  any  one  touched  it,  to 
warn  him  off;  if  he  did  not  leave  instantly,  to  shoot  him 
dead.  '•'  And,"  said  he,  "if  you  have  any  praying  men  in 
your  company,  appoint  them,  for  they  will  conscientiously 
obey  their  orders." 

On  Monday  morning  the  Boston  arrived  from  Philadelphia 
with  the  Seventh  Regiment,  and  worked  nearly  all  day  to 
get  their  steamer  afloat,  so  that  the  Eighth  Regiment,  which 
had  been  there  more  than  thirty  hours,  might  have  the  privi- 
lege of  landing  first.  But  it  was  found  impossible  to  start 
her,  with  their  own  vessel  so  heavily  laden,  and  they  were 
compelled  to  laud  their  men  first.  Then  they  drew  the 
Maryland  from  her  long  anchorage,  and  both  of  the  regi- 
ments found  rest  and  refreshment  in  the  pleasant  quarters 
of  the  Academy. 

Annapolis  was  my  first  acquaintance  with  a  slavehold- 
ing  city,  and  of  persons  held  in  slavery.  The  place  looked 
as  if  cursed  by  the  crime  it  hugged  to  its  breast.  With 
admirable  opportunities  for  growth,  with  a  harbor  and 
shores  that  would  be  filled  with  enterprise  and  taste  were 
it  not  for  this  crime,  the  capital  of  this  freest  of  the  Slave 
States,  is  as  shabby,  mean,  and  crowded  as  the  dirtiest 
quarters  of  the  North  End.  I  had  quite  a  long  conversa- 
tion with  some  of  the  citizens.  They  had  evidently  ex- 
perienced a  new  sensation.  They  had  learned  well  the 
lesson  of  submission  to  slavocrats,  and  as  one,  who  was 
with  me,  a  Unionist  from  Kentucky,  boasted  of  the  number 


220  LETTERS   FROM   CAMP. 

of  slaves  that  he  owned,  they  seemed  to  revere  him  as 
a  superior  being.  But  General  Butler  had  given  them  a 
new  idol  to  fear  and  to  worship.  And  they  responded  as 
meekly  and  readily  to  my  Massachusetts  talk  as  they 
did  to  that  of  the  Kentucky  slaveholder.  They  listened 
almost  reverently  as  I  spoke  of  those  terrible  bugbears, 
Wendell  Phillips  and  Lloyd  Garrison.  Do  not  imagine  that 
there  was  any  especial  courage  in  me.  I  had  on  a  sub- 
military  rig,  and  they  knew  that  five  to  seven  thousand 
men  were  less  than  a  mile  off,  eager  to  avenge  so  much 
as  the  mere  nose-pulling  of  a  Northern  soldier.  They  had 
learned  that  there  was  a  North,  and  that  she  had  strength 
enough  to  do  as  she  pleased,  even  under  the  eaves  of  the 
Maryland  Capitol. 

As  the  troops  marched  out  to  Washington,  the  different 
effect  of  their  presence  on  the  inhabitants  was  noticeable. 
The  whites  looked  mad  or  scared,  according  to  their  social 
position,  chiefly  scared,  and  the  blacks  looked  glad  out  of  the 
eyes,  though  their  lips  were  discreetly  sealed.  As  we  left  the 
city,  they  began  to  be  more  free  in  the  expression  of  their 
feelings.  About  two  miles  out,  a  colored  family  on  a  lonely 
plantation  waved  their  handkerchiefs  and  cheered  vociferous- 
ly. The  soldiers  in  response  cheered  lustily  for  the  Union, 
and  even  kissed  their  hands  to  them  in  their  enthusiasm.  One 
old  colored  woman  was  in  the  Senate  Chamber  a  day  or  two 
ago  selling  cakes  and  pies.  One  of  the  officers  of  the  fa- 
mous Sixth  Eegiment  asked  her  what  she  thought  of  these 
times.  "Why,"  she  said,  "you  seem  to  us  just  like  our 
Lord  Jesus.  He  came  down  of  His  own  accord  to  suffer 
and  die  to  save  us.  And  you  also  come  to  suffer  and  to 
die  to  deliver  us."  The  piety  of  the  old  sister  was  not 
very  much  shocked  by  the  analogy  ;  I  doubt  if  yours  will 
be.  Tears  stood  in  the  eyes  of  the  officer  as  he  told  me 
her  remark.  He  thought  of  those  who  had  already  died  for 
this  cause  in  Baltimore. 


TO  ARMS.  221 

CAMP  ix  THE  CAPITOL.  « 

What  kind  of  a  place  do  you  imagine  a  camp  to  be  ?  Some- 
thing rural  and  rustic,  I  doubt  not.  Shady  trees,  running 
streams,  green,  waving  fields,  with  tents  nestling  together, 
and  soldiers  with  their  environments,  adding  the  life  of  hu- 
manity to  that  of  nature.  You  can  hardly  take  into  account 
the  march  of  improvement  in  making  up  such  an  opinion.  You 
forget  how  we  have  improved  our  ecclesiastical  camps  from 
three  or  four  stakes,  and  a  sheet  stretched  over  them,  to  the 
luxurious  tents  and  dwellings  of  the  Vineyard  and  Hamilton. 
Even  so  have  military  encampments  caught  the  spirit  of  the 
age.  And  so  we  tabernacle  to-day  not  as  Aaron  in  the  wil- 
derness, but  as  his  successors  in  the  days  of  Solomon.  Our 
camp  is  in  the  most  sumptuous  edifice  on  the  continent, 
one  of  the  most  magnificent  in  the  world.  Our  soldiers  sleep 
under  the  splendid  paintings  and  bas-reliefs  of  the  Rotun- 
da, or  between  the  gray  marble  pillars  of  the  old  Repre- 
sentative Hall.  The  echoes  of  the  voices  of  the  heroic  past, 
from  Washington  to  John  Quincy  Adams,  fill  their  souls 
with  high  inspirations.  The  officers  lie  on  beautiful  pave- 
ments of  many  colors,  none  the  softer  though  for  their  vel- 
vety patterns,  and  lounge  on  crimson  chairs  and  sofas, 
reveling  before  the  battle  in  the  rewards  which  usually  fol- 
low only  daring  and  danger.  The  fragrance  of  blossoming 
trees,  and  the  music  of  bands  of  birds,  salute  the  senses, 
not  always  unmingled  with  what  Charles  Lamb  calls  "the 
only  manly  scent,"  that  of  tobacco,  and  what  boys  think 
the  only  manly  music,  that  of  other  two-legged  and  gay- 
appareled  bands. 

The  glitter  of  muskets,  the  blare  of  drums,  and 

"  Sonorous  metal  blowing  martial  sounds," 

the  gay  or  sober  uniforms,  the  even  step  of  marching  thou- 
sands, that  revivifies  the  celebrated  Virgilian  line  (changing 


222  LETTERS   FROM   CAMP. 

"  quadrupedante  "  to  "  bipedante  "),  as  it  shakes  the  dusty 
earth  with  its  pulsing  foot ;  these  are  certainly  unwonted 
experiences  for  an  American  city.  The  "  putrem  campum" 
of  that  verse  is  exceedingly  appropriate  here.  A  more  dis- 
integratable  soil,  that  professed  to  be  a  soil,  I  never  saw. 
I  can  understand  now  how  this  city  is  able  to  almost  con- 
stantly kick  up  such  a  dust  as  fills  the  eyes,  ears,  and  mouths 
of  the  whole  land.  ,The  winds  here  are  all  simooms,  and  the 
political  storms  are  adapted  to  the  climactic  ones  —  of  the 
earth,  earthy. 

There  are  probably  more  soldiers  to-day  in  Washington 
than  were  ever  gathered  before  in  the  same  area  in  this 
country.  And  yet  it  is  but  a  handful  to  the  Parisian  armies, 
and  to  what  may  be  collected  here  or  elsewhere  ere  this 
great  rebellion  and  its  greater  cause  are  crushed  forever. 
They  are  constantly  coming.  A  thousand  entered  at  nine 
o'clock  last  evening  ;  another  thousand  at  two  o'clock  this 
morning,  their  spirit-stirring  music  stirring  spirits,  and  bod- 
ies, too,  in  a  manner  more  stimulating  than  agreeable. 

Notwithstanding  the  numbers  of  troops  here,  probably  not 
less  than  twenty  thousand,  including  the  active  militia  of 
the  District,  the  great  buildings,  where  many  of  them 
quarter,  are  not  overcrowded.  Three  thousand  troops  oc- 
cupy the  Capitol,  and  yet  it  looks  as  empty  as  a  New  York 
church  of  a  Sunday  afternoon.  Many  times  that  number 
could  easily  be  packed  into  its  immense  halls,  passages,  and 
lobbies. 

This  building,  where  the  nation's  hopes  and  fears  so  anx- 
iously and  so  justly  center,  is  held  by  soldiers  from  New 
York,  Pennsylvania,  and  Massachusetts.  These  three  States 
stand  together  in  the  Capitol  to  maintain  our  liberty  to-day, 
as  they  stood  fourscore  years  ago  to  inaugurate  it.  It  is 
more  than  a  happy  coincidence  that  the  magnificent  struc- 
ture, which  embodies  the  sovereignty  and  glory  of  our  nation, 
should  be  intrusted  to  the  watch-care  of  these  ancient  and 


TO  ARMS.  223 

constant  allies.  The  most  dangerous,  and  hence  most  hon- 
orable, post  in  it  is  occupied  by  the  Massachusetts  Sixth, 
who  so  nobly  won  the  prize  in  their  brave  and  rapid  march 
to  its  defense. 

I  escaped  to  the  elegant  Congressional  Library,  hoping  to 
avoid  the  din  of  arms,  and  throats,  and  drums  that  pervades 
every  other  part  of  the  Capitol.  Vain  hope  !  The  tremen- 
dous rattle  of  innumerable  drums,  as  it  seems  to  the  drums 
of  my  ears,  follows  me  here.  From  the  lovely  and  usually 
quiet  grounds  in  front  of  the  Capitol,  it  arises  like  the  rat- 
tling of  hammers  on  the  rivets  of  half  a  dozen  engine  boil- 
ers. If  you  want  to  know  how  military  sounds  sound  when 
concentrated  into  an  army,  and  void  of  fife  and  bugle,  visit 
the  "  Novelty  Works,"  or  any  other  locomotive  factory,  and 
listen  to  the  melody  aforesaid.  The  poor  birds,  who  were  get- 
ting up  a  fine  concert  of  their  own,  succumb,  and  hide  their 
ears  behind  their  wings.  If  my  composition  partakes  of 
this  intense  rattling  and  ringing,  consider  it  all  the  more 
military,  and  hence  the  more  popular. 

CAMP  AT  THE  RELAY. 

CAMP  ESSEX,  May  16, 1861. 
We  have  reached  it  at  last. 

"  My  high  blown  pride 
At  length  breaks  under  me." 

A  greater  than  Jefferson  the  Little,  even  the  bowed  and  ach- 
ing octogenarian  of  Washington  has  issued  his  edict,  and 
here  we  are.  No  more  lounging  on  velvet  chairs,  no  more 
looking  through  plate-glass,  between  bronze  window  frames 
and  marble  pillars,  across  the  placid  Potomac  to  Alexandria, 
and,  with  the  mind's  eye,  to  Richmond.  We  are  on  a  re- 
treat. We  have  left  for  the  North. 

Our  change  from  our  Capitol  quarters  was  most  willingly 
made.  Like  most  persons  in  such  places,  we  found  our- 


224  LETTERS   FKOM   CAMP. 

selves  sorely  afflicted  with  the  rich  man's  disease  —  nothing 
to  do.  So,  when  the  order  came  yesterday  to  march,  the 
soldiers  gladly  fled  to  arms  and  knapsacks.  And  well  they 
might ;  for  the  real  camp,  which  we  have  reached,  is  as 
much  before  the  vain  "pomp  and  glory  of  the  one  we  have 
left  as  dear,  divine  nature  is  ahead  of  hard  and  heartless 
art.  If  all  pride  has  such  a  fall  as  this,  it  should  not  feel 
hurt  at  the  operation. 

Leaving  our  marble  quarters,  marching  down  the  superb 
staircase,  whose  panels  Leutze,  or  his  successors,  will  hard- 
ly be  able  to  fill  with  a  more  glorious  picture  than  that  then 
passing  before  them,  we  took  the  cars,  and  were  dropped  on 
the  side  of  the  hill,  about  half  a  mile  from  the  Relay  House. 

The  next  morning  the  brow  of  the  hill  was  appropriated 
to  our  use ;  and  here,,  in  the  soft  May  air  of  Maryland,  the 
white  canvas  town  of  Camp  Essex  "rose  like  an  exha- 
lation." The  camp  is  not  arranged  precisely  according  to 
"regulation,"  yet  nearly  enough  to  give  an  idea  of  the  ideal 
law,  which  in  the  army,  as  elsewhere,  is  fully  realized  but 
rarely.  Close  to  the  trees  is  a  row  of  tents  —  the  depots  of 
the  commissary  and  quartermaster,  and  the  hospital  quarters. 
The  next  row  is  that  of  the  colonel  and  his  staff;  next, 
the  tidy  quarters  of  the  major ;  then  those  of  the  surgeon 
and  his  assistants.  The  yellow  flag  of  the  surgeon^is  fol- 
lowed by  the  white  one  of  the  chaplain,  with  whom  tents 
the  paymaster.  Arms,  gold,  and  the  gospel  seldom  come  into 
such  close  conjunction  as  they  do  in  this  tent.  At  night 
the  chaplain  sleeps  between  a  box  of  rifles  arid  a  box  of 
money.  The  third  and  last  of  the  official  rows  is  that  of 
the  captains.  At  right  angles  to  these  are  the  streets  of  the 
privates,  more  closely  built,  and  more  densely  populated, 
than  those  of  the  officers.  Yet  crowded  into  these  tents 
are  many  who  in  wealth,  culture,  and  position  are  fully  the 
equals  of  their  military  superiors.  The  son  of  an  ex-senator 
•of  the  United  States,  and  the  son  of  a  "  Bell:Everett "  elec- 


TO   ARMS.  225 

toral  candidate  —  himself  a  Boston  lawyer  —  do  duty  with 
the  musket,  eaqh  enjoying  his  undivided  fifteenth  part  of 
the  canvas  ten-footer  with  as  worthy  fishermen  and  shoe- 
makers, carpenters  and  sailors,  for  comrades. 

Our  flank  companies  are  representatives  of  the  flanks  of 
the  State  —  Pittsfield  on  the  left,  and  Salem  on  the  right. 
Next  to  the  brilliant  Salem  Zouaves  come  the  Marblehead 
fishermen.  Captain  Knott's  Marbleheaders  deserve  spe- 
cial mention,  as  the  first  in  all  the  land  to  respond  to  the 
call  of  the  President.  The  very  next  morning  after  the  sum- 
mons left  Washington,  his  company  inarched  from  home 
through  a  storm  of  driving  sleet,  and  Faneuil  fiall  welcomed 
them  first  of  all  to  the  service  of  patriotism,  with  which  it  is 
identified.  As  they  entered  its  honored  walls,  bound  on  a 
grander  mission  than  any  to  which  their  fathers  had  respond- 
ed, the  "  stone  must  have  cried  out  of  the  wall,  and  the 
beam  out  of  the  timber  have  answered  it,"  in  honor  of  the 
perpetual  valor  of  this  most  patriotic  of  towns.  In  no  less 
than  three  of  the  historic  pictures  which  cover  the  walls  of 
the  rotunda  are  representatives  of  Marblehead.  The  new 
pictures  which  shall  reproduce  this  holier  war  will  not  be 
without  her  heroic  presence.  Beverly  and  Gloucester  — 
wonderfully  given  to  fun,  frolic,  and  letter-writing  —  occupy 
the  next  street.  Loquacious  Lynn  and  conservative  New- 
buryport  share  the  last  two  streets.  It  would  never  have 
done  to  place  all  the  argumentative  shoemakers  together : 
there  would  be  no  knowing  how,  with  rifles  and  revolvers  in 
their  hands,  they  might  have  concluded  to  carry  on  their 
discussions.  So  Conservatism  and  Progress  are  hitched 
together ;  and  the  staid  bearers  of  the  name  of  Gushing, 
and  the  lively  followers  of  the  senatorial  Crispin,  balanced 
each  other.  Outside  of  the  last  street  is  Pittsfield,  look- 
ing north  and  west,  protecting  the  camp  on  its  most  assail- 
able side.  So  seven  hundred  men  are  housed  within  four 
and  twenty  hours  after  leaving  the  Capitol. 
15 


226  LETTERS   FROM   CAMP. 

The  view  from  our  camp  is  charming.  At  our  feet  lies  a 
narrow  valley,  through  which  creeps  the  slumberous  Patapsco, 
covering  its  face  with  willows.  It  has  been  hard  at  work 
miles  above  driving  mills  and  factories,  and  now  enjoys  its 
release  from  labor :  only  temporary,  however,  is  this  recess, 
for  it  is  soon  caught  again,  driven  into  sluice-ways,  and 
broken  upon  wheels,  only  finding  lasting  peace  when  it 
melts  into  the  bosom  of  the  placid  Chesapeake.  Just  be- 
neath us  nestles  the  little  village  of  Elk  Ridge  Landing  — 
once  a  port  of  entry  and  a  haven  for  ships.  But  the  wash- 
ings from  the  hills  have  choked  up  the  channel,  and  choked 
off  the  trade.  Now  it  seems  devoted  to  the  imbibition  of 

* 

whisky,  of  which,  judging  from  the  number  of  shops,  enough 
is  sold  to  reopen  navigation,  were  it  judiciously  applied  to 
that  purpose.  From  the  hill-top  the  village  has  a  pleasant 
aspect,  with  its  two  churches,  one  embowered  in  trees,  and 
the  other  standing  in  a  field  of  blossoming  clover,  the  white 
tombstones  casting  a  moonlight  luster  on  the  green  mounds 
beneath.  But  these  are  almost  the  only  adornments  of  the 
village.  The  main  street  is  a  collection  of  wood  and  brick 
houses,  with  no  sidewalks,  and  but  few  gardens  and  trees. 

The  walks  around  the  camp  are  as  delightful  as  its  out- 
look. Deep  ravines,  heavily  shaded,  cover  the  northern 
and  western  sides.  Through  each  of  these  trickles  a  tiny 
brook  dancing  down  to  the  river.  Threading  the  way 
through  these  glens,  one  enters  the  upland,  which  opens 
into  varied  vistas.  Above  the  viaduct  the  Patapsco  runs 
through  a  deep  gorge,  scattered  along  which  are  mills  and 
the  dwellings  of  the  workmen.  The  summits  are  crowned 
with  the  dwellings  of  the  landholders  and  their  tenants. 
Looking  from  these  eminences  the  landscape  spreads  out  in 
those  softly  undulating  lines  which  rich  soils  only  can  ex- 
hibit. A  hard,  thin  soil  requires  mines  of  imported  wealth, 
and  generations  of  culture,  to  give  it  character.  But  this 
rich  earth  enriches  everything.  It  thickens  and  deepens  the 


TO  ARMS.  227 

foliage  of  the  trees,  softens  the  hard  edges  of  the  hills,  and 
gives  to  the  whole  landscape  a  royal  sweep  and  fullness. 

SMOKE  BEFORE  THE  FIRE. 

The  flames  begin  to  shoot  forth  along  the  whole  border  — 
at  Harper's  Ferry,  Western  Virginia,  Cairo,  and  St.  Louis. 
This  great  seam  in  our  Ship  of  State,  that  has  been  stuffed 
and  stuffed  with  tow  and  pitch  by  ecclesiastical  and  political 
calkers  for  a  couple  of  generations,  is  on  fire.  The  flames, 
long  pent  within  the  vessel,  have  reached  the  surface,  and, 
naturally  enough,  break  out  in  its  most  inflammable  part. 
Soon,  perchance,  they  will  lick  the  stars  in  their  mad  fury. 
"  The  strong  shall  be  as  tow,  and  the  maker  of  it  as  a  spark, 
and  they  shall  both  burn  together,  and  none  shall  quench 
them."  There  is  no  blaze  here  yet — only  intense  and  suffoca- 
ting smoke,  in  which  all  things  are  hidden.  We  dwell  where  * 
Dame  Rumor  has  her  seat ;  but  this  lady  has  always  proved 
her  close  relationship  to  the  father  of  lies,  and  never  more  in- 
disputably than  in  the  present  smoke,  preliminary,  perhaps,  to 
that  of  battle.  One  hour  she  positively  declares  that  twenty- 
five  thousand  secessionists  are  within  a  day's  march  of  the 
capital,  and  intend  to  storm  it  before  the  next  nightfall. 
The  next,  she  declares  the  troops  at  Alexandria  are  verify- 
ing Scripture,  and  fleeing  when  no  man  pursueth ;  that 
others  are  also  hasting  away  from  Harper's  Ferry.  So  she 
flies  up  and  down  these  streets,  choking  our  ears  as  the  dust 
does  our  mouths,  and  with  equally  unserviceable  stuff.  The 
fact  is,  we  shall  never  know  anything  certain  about  the  re- 
bellious section  until  we  march  an  army  of  observation,  as 
well  as  of  occupation,  into  its  midst.  The  seceders  love 
darkness  rather  than  light  because  their  deeds  are  evil. 
They  keep  up  all  kinds  of  contrary  stories  to  delude  the 
government,  and  especially  the  North.  They  wisely  adapt 
their  compound  to  the  exciting  of  our  fears  and  the  allaying 


228  LETTERS   FROM   CAMP. 

of  our  vigilance.  So  they  say  four  hundred  thousand  men  will, 
before  midsummer,  pour  on  Washington  ;  or  within  a  week 
the  Confederate  flag  will  float  on  the  Capitol,  if  they  conde- 
scend to  allow  it  to  stand.  Then,  having  played  the  buga- 
boo enough,  they  pretend  it  is  all  practical  joking.  They 
have  hardly  any  troops  anywhere  ;  only  thirty- thousand  or 
so  in  all  the  Confederacy.  Richmond  is  unprotected,  and 
"only  a  miracle"  can  save  that  city  from  the  government 
troops.  I  fear  the  Greeks  bringing  these  telegraphic  gifts. 
They  must  be  watched  and  guarded  from  nearer  heights  than 
those  of  Arlington.  We  must  arise  and  go  down  into  the 
South  country,  and  see  for  ourselves,  and,  if  need  be,  feel 
in  ourselves  their  hostile  preparations. 

The  letter-writers  and  telegraph  operators  are  in  a  dubious 
state  as  it  respects  matters  in  the  Cabinet,  as  they  are  in 
respect  to  those  in  the  South.  Paul  very  happily  describes 
the  whole  class  in  that  keen  sketch  of  the  bustling  know-noth- 
ing wise  men  of  his  day,  of  all  skeptical  days  :  "  Ever  striv- 
ing and  never  able  to  come  to  the  knowledge  of  the  truth." 
The  Vailed  Prophet  never  kept  his  face  more  closely  con- 
cealed than  President  Lincoln,  General  Scott,  and  Secretary 
Cameron  do  the  face  of  military  affairs.  It  is  a  fine  time 
for  our  spiritualist  friends  to  bring  forth  their  mediums. 
Enormous  prices  would  be  paid  by  public  journals  for  reli- 
able facts  that  are  undoubtedly  transpiring  in  Virginia  and 
the  southernmost  States  —  for  more  important  facts  that 
are  as  certainly  settled  and  partially  embodied  in  act  in  the 
brains  of  the  antagonist  leaders  —  rebels  and  patriots.  How 
"stale,  flat,  and  unprofitable"  that  folly  looks  beside  these 
opportunities  and  urgencies  for  its  existence  !  How  fortu- 
nate it  is  that  these  silly  women  laden  with  lusts,  and  sillier 
men  more  heavily  laden  that  lead  them  captive,  have  no  such 
insight !  It  is  the  glory  of  God  to  conceal  a  thing ;  and 
this  divine  glory  is  partially  shared  by  those  who,  in  the 
exigencies  of  State,  share  also  in  his  sovereignty. 


LETTERS    FROM    CAMP. 


II.     SLAVERY    DYING. 

THE  LOOK  OP  THE  LAND. 

CAMP  ESSEX,  May  16. 

AM  sitting  on  the  ground>  in  the  door  of  my  tent, 
like  Abraham  ;  like  him,  too,  on  a  hill  country, 
from  which  a  large  and  lovely  prospect  opens. 
Like  him,  yet  again,  as  our  brethren  in  this  vicin- 
ity would  undoubtedly  suggest  if  they  sat  beside  me,  I  am 
surrounded  by  the  patriarchal  institution,  to  whose  preser- 
vation they  are  ready  to  sacrifice  liberty,  civilization,  Chris- 
tianity, every  good  and  perfect  gift  of  God.  Not  very  near 
is  this  institution,  much  less  is  it  armed,  as  in  his  day,  for  the 
rescue  of  its  master  or  his  kindred  from  these  invaders  from 
the  north  country.  The  peaceful  scenes  over  which  his  eye 
moved  in  Oriental  quietude  are  before  me,  though  not  in  the 
foreground.  The  peaceful  sounds  that  crept  into  his  ears 
are  far  from  filling  mine.  The  drums  rattle  around  me. 
The  loud  orders  of  the  officers,  drilling  their  companies, 
break  clear  and  shrill  over  the  drum-beats,  while  the  hurrahs 
of  other  troops  welcoming  their  marching'  comrades,  and 
the  sharp  sound  of  the  musketry,  or  the  reverberating  roar 
of  the  cannon,  of  yet  others  who  are  practicing  themselves 

(229) 


230  LETTERS   FEOM   CAMP. 

and  their  guns,  mingle  with  the  more  peaceful  chattering 
of  the  Gibeonites  of  the  camp  in  their  bustling  service  for 
the  wants  of  the  body,  and  are  all  often  encompassed  in  the 
scream  of  the  locomotive,  and  the  roar  of  his  train  —  a  wel- 
come proof  and  prophecy  that  the  victories  of  peace  are  not 
only  greater,  but  more  lasting,  than  those  of  war.  These 
shall  perish,  but  those  shall  endure.  We  can  add  without 
irreverence,  "  Yea,  these  "  signs  and  weeds  of  war  "  shall 
all  wax  old  as  doth  a  garment ;  as  a  vesture  shalt  thou  "  0 
Prince  of  Peace,  "  change  them,  and  they  shall  be  changed ; " 
but  the  years  and  the  triumphs  of  peace  shall  have  no  end. 
I  trust  they  will  be  made  more  melodious  in  expression. 
Why  cannot  the  movements  of  machinery  be  made  as  silent 
as  those  of  nature  ?  Why  may  they  not  sing  as  delightful- 
ly to  our  dull  ear  as  the  stars  did  to  the  keener  sense  of 
Messieurs  Shakspeare  and  Addison  ?  This  hurly-burly 
of  peace  and  war  has  suddenly  ceased  for  a  moment,  and 
blessed  Nature,  the  beloved  disciple  of  her  Creator,  puts  her 
arms  of  love  and  beauty  around  the  distracted  soul. 

As  I  look  out  over  the  glittering  white  roofs  and  stacked 
bayonets  of  the  camp,  my  eyes  roam  over  as  delightful  a 
bit  of  scenery  as  ever  enticed  them  from  the  drudgery  of  the 
pen.  A  valley  lies  beneath  them,  covering  some  two  or 
three  square  miles,  if  its  grateful  irregularity  could  be 
Quakerized  into  such  rectangular  abominations  as  a  square. 
Through  it  lazily  strolls  the  river,  gladly  indulging  its 
Southern  indisposition  to  work,  after  the  involuntary  servi- 
tude into  which  some  avaricious  Yankees  had  forced  it,  just 
above  the  viaduct,  for  the  sake  of  running  their  dirty  and 
noisy  nail  factories. 

Our  Southern  brethren  do  not  believe  in  compelling  any- 
thing to  work  except  the  negro.  With  great  flourishes  about 
the  advantages  to  him  of  compulsory  labor,  and  the  dire 
effects  of  emancipation  in  letting  loose  upon  their  commu- 
nity a  mass  of  idle  men  and  women,  they  join  a  most  hearty 


SLAVERY   DYING.  231 

indifference  to  the  idleness  of  all  other  creatures,  human, 
animal,  and  vegetable. 

An  amusing  instance  of  the  unconscious  power  of  this 
feeling  occurred  yesterday.  A  friend  residing  here,  whose 
pleasant  acquaintance  I  have  made,  speaking  of  a  piece  of 
meadow  which  was  being  devoted  to  the  raising  of  osier,  or 
basket  willow,  said  the  owner  was  getting  twenty-five  dol- 
lars an  acre  per  annum  for  the  meadow,  and  "  didn't  have 
to  work  it  at  all."  That  last  consideration  would  have 
never  occurred  to  a  Northern  man.  This  is  one  of  the  most 
important  railroad  centers  in  the  country  —  trains  passing 
and  stopping  almost  every  hour  of  the  day  arid  night ;  and 
yet  I  have  not  seen  half  a  dozen  teams  in  its  streets,  except 
those  in  the  service  of  the  troops,  during  my  three  days' 
residence.  Here  are  three  thousand  men  hungry  for  deli- 
cacies, and  willing  to  pay  for  them,  and  not  a  farmer's  cart 
has  entered  the  camp.  A  half  dozen  black  and  white  loafers 
with  little  baskets  of  cakes  and  pies,  a  wagon  or  two  larger 
capitalists,  with  beer  and  oranges,  are  the  whole  trading  force 
extemporized  by  our  necessities.  The  exhibition  day  of  a 
country  academy  in  a  Northern  State  develops  tenfold  more 
business  activity  than  these  multitudinous  trains  and  troops 
can  bring  to  life  here.  Great  masses  of  the  fat  earth  slumber 
in  the  sun.  Many  fine  acres  of  grain  and  grass  gladden 
my  sight,  or  would  gladden  it,  did  I  not  think  that  the  eye 
of  the  Holy  Spirit  was  fixed  on  these  same  fields  and  their 
owners  and  tillers.  How  plainly  His  solemn  tones  sounded 
in  my  ear  as  He  speaks  to  these  transgressors,  "  Go  to  now, 
ye  rich  men  ;  weep  and  howl  for  your  miseries  that  shall 
come  upon  you.  Behold,  the  hire  of  the  laborers  who  have 
reaped  down  your  fields,  which  is  of  you  kept  back  by  fraud, 
crieth  ;  and  the  cries  of  them  which  have  reaped  are  entered 
into  the  cars  of  the  Lord  of  Sabaoth."  That  Lord  of  Sab- 
aoth,  the  Lord  of  hosts,  is  marshaling  His  hosts  for  battle. 
May  He  not  be  compelled  to  employ  them  in  the  punishment 


232  LETTERS   FROM   CAMP. 

of  these  defrauders,  but  may  they  speedily  give  unto  their 
servants  that  which  is  just  and  equal.  "  Behold,  the  Judge 
standeth  at  the  door." 

I  must  acknowledge  the  fields  look  very  lovely,  whatever 
the  mode  by  which  they  are  cultivated,  and  are  satisfactory 
because  they  are  expressive  of  industry,  even  if  unpaid.  On 
some  of  their  knolls,  hidden  in  the  already  deep  foliage, 
stand  the  cosy  farm-houses,  with  their  slave  quarters,  like 
the  corn-barns  and  smoke-houses  of  Northern  farmers,  cud- 
dling round  the  back  door,  near  enough  to  bring  in  the  corn- 
cakes  without  their  getting  cold  by  the  way,  and  far  enough 
off  to  keep  up  the  idea  that  they  are  a  kind  of  distinct  order 
of  beings  —  a  notion  which  the  white  man  in  this  region  so 
sedulously  and  so  foolishly  cultivates.  The  slaves  are 
housed,  in  location  and  in  the  style  of  their  dwelling,  about 
half  way  between  their  master  and  his  other  cattle.  They 
have  about  the  same  position  in  the  fancies  with  which  he 
feeds  his  brain  —  a  sort  of  half-way  house  between  a  white 
man  and  a  fine  horse. 

Around  this  lazy  yet  lovely  valley  rise  hills  like  the  one 
where  I  am  writing,  though  usually  unoccupied,  and  either 
covered  with  wild  woods  or  scarred  with  brown  barren 
patches  that  have  evidently  been  scratched  by  the  slave's 
plow  till  they  have  refused  to  respond  to  such  forced  en- 
treaties, and  were  then  abandoned  by  their  idle  owners  to 
an  unnatural  desolation.  But  the  gay  sunlight  makes  them 
pleasant  to  look  upon  at  this  distance,  and  they  agreeably 
diversify  the  deep  green  of  the  rolling  meadow  and  more 
rolling  forest,  among  which  they  lie. 

If  I  rise  up,  and  walk  or  ride  through  the  land,  I  can  but 
see  what  Lot  saw  when  he  lifted  up  his  eyes,  that  it  is 
"  well  watered  everywhere,  even  as  the  garden  of  the  Lord, 
like  the  land  of  Egypt  as  thou  comest  unto  Zoar."  Is  it 
not  in  other  respects  like  the  land  Lot  saw  ?  Does  not 
God  see  the  weary  bands  that  have  often  moved,  hand- 


SLAVERY    DYING.  233 

cuffed  and  chained  together,  along  these  roads,  marching 
to  the  hotter  fires  of  a  more  Southern  hell  ?  Does  He  not 
hear  the  voice  of  lustful  command,  of  ferocious  rage,  of  the 
blasphemous  auctioneering  of  sacred  woman,  and  lovely 
children,  and  Christian  men,  made  in  His  image  and  regen- 
erated with  His  grace  ?  Does  not  His  ever-listening  ear  hear 
these  brutal  sounds  of  tyrannic  passion  as  they  go  up  through 
this  soft  and  palpitating  air  ?  A  Maryland  gentleman,  once 
a  slaveholder,  told  me  that  he  heard  the  high  sheriff  of  one 
of  her  counties,  after  one  of  these  human  auctions,  say, 
"  Lloyd  Garrison  never  talked  half  bad  enough  about  us. 
I  am  surprised  that  the  earth  does  not -open  and  swallow  us 
up."  Has  not  the  Creator  said  of  this  and  more  Southern, 
and  probably  even  more  sinful  soil,  "  Because  the  cry  of 
Sodom  and  Gomorrah  is  great,  and  because  their  sin  is  very 
grievous,  I  will  go  down  now  and  see  whether  they  have 
done  altogether  according  to  the  cry  of  it  which  is  come 
unto  me  ;  and  if  not,  I  will  know."  He  is  making  inquisi- 
tion for  blood.  Who  shall  be  able  to  stand  ? 

I  rejoice  to  see  tokens  of  the  departure  of  this  cloud  of 
darkness  and  death  from  this  fair  land.  The  rays  of  uni- 
versal liberty  are  shooting  through  Maryland.  They  gladden 
with  their  novel  radiance  the  mountains  and  valleys  of  Vir- 
ginia. See  the  vote  for  the  Union  just  cast  here  —  the 
Union  with  an  anti-slavery  North,  and  under  an  anti-slavery 
government.  See  the  new  governor  of  Virginia,  his  asso- 
ciates, and  the  whole  animus  of  his  government.  Kan- 
sas, too,  stands  tiptoe  on  those  misty  mountain-tops.  Mis- 
souri has  dethroned  Satan  from  his  usurped  seat  there. 
Here,  too,  is  the  light  descending.  The  active  complicity, 
or,  at  the  best,  supine  indifference  of  the  wealthy,  the  fear 
and  feebleness  of,  the  working  classes,  the  cowardice  of  the 
Church,  and  the  cruelty  of  the  State,  are  rapidly  coining  to 
a  perpetual  end.  One  can  hardly  conceive  the  change  which 
has  been  already  wrought  here  since  the  possession  of  its 


234  LETTERS   FROM   CAMP. 

territories  by  the  armies  of  an  anlji-slavery  government.  Its 
citizens  begin  to  breathe  freely,  and  even  talk  iVeely.  Soon 
will  healthful  agitation  breezes  blow,  and  the  work  of  regen- 
eration be  begun,  never  to  stop  till  the  blessing  of  perfect 
love  to  God  and  every  man  shall  universally  prevail. 
"  Behold  how  brightly  breaks  the  morning." 

How  SLAVES  TALK. 

It  is  quiet  and  peaceful  here  now,  and  I  will  avail  myself  of 
the  brief  interregnum  to  post  the  book  of  my  experience  and 
observation  on  the  great  matter  which  has  kindled  this  great 
fire  —  the  merchandise  of  the  bodies  and  souls  of  men. 

I  am  like  one  who  should  discourse  wisely  on  all  the  cur- 
rents, storms,  and  other  grand  phenomena  of  the  ocean, 
when  he  had  only  stood  on  the  rocks  at  Nahant,  had  seen 
the  waves  roll  in  on  a  pleasant  day,  and  had  thrown  his 
eyes  over  the  modest  sheet  that  lies  at  his  feet.  I  have 
only  touched  the  edge  of  the  great  gulf  of  slavery,  that 
sweeps  for  thousands  of  miles  beyond  me,  with  its  terrific 
storms  of  lust  and  ferocity,  its  immeasurable  depths  of 
despair  and  dread,  its  awful,  unutterable  blackness  of  dark- 
ness. I  walk  along  the  beach,  gather  a  few  of  its  pebbles, 
listen  to  the  solemn  dash  of  its  cold  and  cruel  waves,  and 
look  out  with  wearied  eyes  on  the  gloomy  expanse,  as  it 
spreads  itself,  southward  and  westward,  myriads  of  miles, 
in  a  horror  of  great  darkness. 

The  first  person  that  I  ever  saw  in  slavery  was  at  An- 
napolis. She  was  a  pleasant,  modest  girl  of  ten  or  twelve 
summers.  Her  name  was  Mary.  I  thought  how  appropriate 
that  the  name  of  the  mother  of  my  Lord  should  be  given  to 
this  poor,  despised  girl,  whom  somebody  pretended  to  own  ; 
whom  they  could  sell  in  the  market-place,  and  subject  to 
all  unutterable  horrors  that  overhang  the  future  of  these  in- 
nocent maidens.  Had  slavery  existed  in  Judea,  the  mother 


SLAVERY  DYING.  235 

of  Christ  would  have  been  a  slave.  For  He  must  stand  at 
the  bottom  of  humanity  that  He  might  embrace  it.  In  fact, 
he  is  asserted  to  have  occupied  this  place.  If  the  pro- 
slavery  divines  are  right,  in  pressing  out  of  measure  the 
word  "  servant"  in  the  letters  of  Paul,  and  if  <JoOAo,~  refers 
in  all  cases  to  slaves,  then  Christ  was  a  slave  ;  for  Paul 
says,  "  He  made  Himself  of  no  reputation,  and  took  upon 
Him  the  form  of  a  slave."  I  trust  the  poor  slaves  find 
comfort  in  that  text,  when  they  are  drenched  through  and 
through  with  the  p ratings  of  preachers  as  to  the  duties  of 
servants. 

I  suppose,  if  I  had  visited  Havana,  I  should  have  heard 
my  black  brother  called  Jesus.  I  wish  these  man-ser- 
vants, had  this  name.  He  who  took  their  place  would  be 
glad  to  comfort  them  with  His  human  title.  The  nearest 
we  can  come  to  it  is  Mary,  and  so  I  am  glad  they  have  the. 
sense  of  kinship  with  Him  which  that  name  confers.  But 
yesterday  I  dined  with  a  slaveholder,  a  member  of  our 
church,  who  owned  his  cook,  —  and  a  very  fine  cook  she 
was,  too,  judging  from  the  dinner,  —  who  was  also  blessed 
with  this  sacred  name. 

The  name  of  John  Brown,  which  so  many  good  men  of 
New  England  have  not  yet  reverenced  as  they  will,  and  the 
cause  in  which  he  is  yet  to  be  copied  by  this  nation,  and 
for  which  he  laid  down  his  life,  find  respectful  hearers  in 
the  midst  of  this  people,  that  have  sat  so  long  in  darkness. 
But  the  other  night,  after  a  pleasant  prayer  meeting  in  the 
village  church,  quite  a  number  of  the  members  stood  at  the 
cross  roads,  and  discoursed  on  this  subject  and  on  this 
hero.  They  knew  him  here.  They  said  he  traveled  through 
this  section  quite  extensively  the  summer  before  his  death. 
One  of  them,  a  blacksmith,  said  that  his  horse  was  shod 
at  his  shop.  He  called  himself  a  Baptist  preacher,  and  had 
trusses  for  sale.  As  hernia,  I  have  been  told,  is  a  very 
common  disease  with  the  slaves,  this  business  gave  him 


236  LETTETS   FROM  CAMP. 

fine  opportunities  for  making  their  acquaintance.  He  spoke 
freely  against  slavery,  and  was  very  ready  with  the  Scrip- 
ture in  his  discussions  with  the  people.  These  last  charac- 
teristics were  marks  of  the  man,  no  less  than  the  former,  by 
which  he  sought  to  relieve  them  in  their  physical  weakness, 
and,  at  the  same  time,  to  fill  their  ears  with  the  glad  tidings 
that  the  year  of  jubilee  had  come.  He  died  without  the 
sight,  yet  he  saw  it  by  faith,  and  was  glad. 

The  whites,  as  a  body,  ignore  the  blacks  altogether.  A 
good  brother  from  Virginia  told  me,  in  Washington,  he  could 
not  look  upon  them  as  the  same  order  of  beings  with  him- 
self. He  was  perfectly  honest,  and,  I  am  afraid,  spoke 
frankly  what  yet  abides  powerfully  in  many  breasts  in  New 
England.  They  carry  this  sentiment  a  little  further  here 
than  in  New  England,  though  they  only  carry  it  to  its  logi- 
.cal  issue.  They  say,  if  of  a  different  species  of  humanity, 
radically,  perpetually,  then  of  a  lower,  as  is  apparent  by 
their  history  and  condition.  If  of  a  lower,  then  they  are 
the  servants  of  the  higher.  If  divinely  appointed  for  servi- 
tude, where's  the  harm  in  slavery,  per  se  f  Now,  we  can- 
not cure  this  brother's  idea  as  to  slavery,  until  we  pluck 
the  tap-root  of  caste  and  prejudice  from  ourselves.  We 
must  first  cast  the  beam  out  of  our  own  eye,  and  then  we 
can  see  clearly  to  cast  the  mote  out  of  our  brother's  eye. 

This  is  the  common  feeling  here.  Hence  they  talk  flip- 
pantly about  the  blacks  not  being  able  to  take  care  of  them- 
selves —  not  desiring  freedom  —  not  being  as  well  off  when 
free  as  when  enslaved  —  and  much  other  white  trash, 
which  goes  for  good  common  sense  in  this  section  of  the 
country.  I  thought  I  would  go  to  the  fountain  head,  and 
see  if  the  waters  tasted  the  same  there.  I  would  apply  a 
little  of  Baconianism  to  the  problem.  So  I  asked  the  slaves 
and  their  free  kindred  themselves  what  they  thought  in  these 
matters  ?  How  easy  it  is  for  a  child  to  confound  a  philoso- 
pher, if  the  child  has  common  sense  and  the  wise  man  has 


SLAVERY  DYING.  237 

not !  I  do  not  suppose  all  the  gentlemen  I  have  talked  with 
on  this  subject — and  they  have  not  been  a  few — have  con- 
versed with  as  many  of  their  colored  neighbors,  and  in  some 
cases,  as  I  have  been  told  by  themselves,  blood  relations, 
on  these  vital  questions,  in  all  their  lives,  as  I  have  talked 
with  in  the  last  forty  days.  They  are  regular  Aristotelians 
on  this  subject  of  inquiry.  They  shut  themselves  up  in  their 
own  exclusive  Caucasian  conceit,  and  theorize  as  to  the 
state  of  feeling  in  their  neighbors,  with  whom  they  never 
honestly  converse. 

Two  interesting  proofs  of  this  occurred  here  but  this 
week.  I  was  visiting  at  one  of  the  elegant  seats  surround- 
ing our  camp.  The  subject  of  slavery  came  up.  The  lady 
of  the  house  was  in  great  fear  of  insurrections  in  the  Cotton 
States — the  gentleman  laughed  at  her  fears.  "Slaves 
wouldn't  take  their  liberty  if  it  was  offered  them,"  he  said. 
He  "  tried  it  once."  "  Who  will  take  care  of  the  picka- 
ninnies when  they  are  sick?"  says  Juno.  "  Who  will  give 
me  a  dollar  and  a  horse  to  ride  to  town  if  I  am  free,"  says 
Jupiter.  So  the  king  of  gods  and  men,  and  his  ox-eyed 
queen,  "  soror  uxorque  Jovis,"  have  their  ears  bored  through, 
and  well  hung  with  brass  pendants,  and  become  bond  ser- 
vants forever  to  a  lank,  brown,  strutting,  tobacco-chewing 
lot  of  humans.  (The  gentleman  aforesaid  is  not  of  this 
class.  He  is  a  Unionist  and  a  non-slaveholder,  having  manu- 
mitted the  "gods  of  Greece"  in  spite  of  their  protestations.) 
How  changed  from  those  divinities  who  shook  the  world, 
with  their  nod,  and  who  sat  in  calm  authority  over  the  great 
Trojans  and  greater  Greeks  and  Eomans,  in  their  long,  event- 
ful history  !  I  thought  I  would  hunt  up  some  of  these  gods 
and  goddesses,  and  if  I  did  not  worship  at  their  feet,  I  would 
at  least  inquire  reverently  as  to  their  feelings  on  the  matter 
of  freedom  and  slavery. 

The  next  day  I  sat  in  the  woods  reading,   when  Jupiter 
came  along  disguised  as  an  old  black  man,  with  a  basket  on 


238  LETTERS   FROM   CAMP. 

his  arm  and  a  staff  in  his  hand.  Having  been  taught  in 
Grecian  mythology,  I  detected  the  deity  in  spite  of  the  dis- 
guise. I  addressed  him  respectfully.  He  was  complacent 
and  conversible.  I  asked  him  his  name.  He  had  assumed 
for  the  present  that  of  John  Diggs. 

"  Are  you  a  slave  ?  " 

"No,  sir." 

"  Have  you  ever  been  ?  " 

"Yes,  sir  —  till  I  was  thirty  odd  years  old." 

"  How  did  you  get  your  freedom  ?  " 

"  My  mistress  gave  it  to  me  at  her  death." 

"  How  long  have  you  been  free  ?  " 

"  Some  fifteen  or  twenty  years." 

"  Well,  I  understand  you  free  blacks  are  not  half  as  well 
off  as  the  slaves.  That  is  true,  isn't  it  ?  " 

"  No,  sir  ;    I  live  better  than  I  ever  did  when  a  slave." 

"  But  they  say  you  won't  work  —  you  are  all  lazy." 

"  They  won't  give  us  a  chance,  sir.  They  don't  like  to 
encourage  the  free  negro,  and  so  they  hire  slaves  or  the 
Irish,  and  let  us  starve.  We  would  work  as  heartily  as 
anybody  if  they  would  hire  us." 

"  But  weren't  you  happier  when  a  slave  ?  You  had 
enough  to  eat  and  drink  then,  and  wherewithal  to  be 
clothed." 

"  I  didn't  have  any  more  than  I  do  now ;  and,  then,  now 
when  I  sit  down  to  my  dinner  and  supper,  I  don't  have 
somebody  come  blustering  and  swearing  round  the  door, 
swinging  his  whip  and  flogging  me  away  to  any  kind  of 
hard  work,  though  ever  so  tired.  Ah,  sir,  I'm  a  great  deal 
happier  eating  my  poor  supper  nowadays,  with  my  wife 
and  chil'n,  than  I  ever  was  when  a  slave." 

"  Have  you  any  relations  in  slavery  ?  " 

"  All  my  brothers  and  sisters." 

"  Where  ?  " 

"In  Prince  George's  County,  sir." 


SLAVERY   DYING.  239 

"  They  don't  wish  to  be  free,  do  they  ?  " 

"  Yes,  sir,  every  slave  does." 

"  You  must  be  mistaken.  A  good  many  gentlemen  have 
told  me  that  they  don't  want  to  be  free." 

"  I  would  like  to  have  them  offer  the  slaves  their  liberty." 

"  But  what  makes  you  want  to  be  free  ?  " 

"  Why,  sir,  you  know,  when  a  boy's  about  thirteen  years 
old,  he  feels  as  he'd  like  to  be  his  own  master,  and  the  feel- 
ing don't  grow  any  less  as  he  grows  older." 

So  ended  my  catechism  and  his  replies.  The  twinkle  of 
his  eyes,  as  he  told  of  his  happiness  over  the  scanty  supper 
table,  and  the  passion  of  boys  for  freedom,  spoke  far  more 
than  his  lips.  I  asked  him  if  he  went  to  meeting. 

"  0,  yes,  I've  been  a  Methodist  for  most  forty  years." 

"  Why  don't  you  go  to  the  church  in  the  village  ?  " 

"0,  sir,  'pears  as  the  white  folks  don't  like  to  have  us 
worship  with  them,  and  so  we  have  to  have  a  house  of  our 
own." 

"  Well,  religion  is  a  good  thing,  isn't  it  ?  " 

"  Yes,  sir,  sweeter  than  honey,  sweeter  than  sugar,  better 
than  coffee,  sir." 

I  could  appreciate  that  climax  after  forty  days'  drinking  of 
camp  coffee.  I  was  glad  to  find  that  Jupiter  had  experienced 
religion,  and  become  a  humble  and  happy  Christian.  This 
war  shows  that  Mars  has  met  with  a  change  also.  I  have 
talked  with  not  a  few  blacks,  and  find  but  one  sentiment. 
One  old  man,  with  but  one  leg,  said  he  thought  the  war  was 
for  liberty. 

"  Liberty  for  whom  ?  "  I  asked. 

"  For  all  of  us,  white  and  black." 

I  asked  him  if  he  would  fight  in  the  war. 

"  Yes,"  he  answered,  "  as  much  as  he  could  with  his 
one  leg." 

At  Washington  I  asked  a  waiter  similar  questions.  He 
was  free,  had  been  born  a  slave,  bought  himself  for  six  hun- 


240  LETTERS   FROM   CAMP. 

dred  dollars  ;  his  wife  and  children  were  yet  slaves,  and 
were  sold  from  him  to  Tennessee. 

I  asked  why  he  was  so  foolish  as  to  work  hard  and  raise 
money  to  buy  himself.  Everybody  here  said  the  slaves 
were  better  off  than  the  free  blacks. 

"0,  sir,"  said  he,  "  I  wanted  to  lie  down  massa  and  get 
up  massa  !  " 

"  Out  of  the  mouths  of  babes  and  sucklings,"  as  these 
supercilious  whites  esteem  their  colored  brethren,  "has  God 
ordained  strength,  that  He  may  still  the  enemy  and  the 
avenger." 

THE  CARROLLTON  MANOR. 

As  we  leave  Ellicot's  Mills  we  enter  the  broad,  handsome 
turnpike  from  Baltimore  to  Frederick.  This  is  the  finest  road 
I  have  seen  in  this  country  ;  it  is  the  only  fine  one  in  this 
vicinity.  None  handsomer,  no  one  as  handsome,  goes  out 
of  Boston.  It  is  a  hundred  feet  broad,  running  directly 
west  from  Baltimore  for  nine  miles,  with  undeviating  stead- 
fastness, turning  neither  to  the  right  hand  nor  to  the  left. 
Nine  miles  out  it  winds  round  to  the  river  to  accommodate 
Ellicot's  Mills,  and  then,  going  up  to  the  high  rolling  lands 
it  had  abandoned  for  a  moment,  it  proceeds  on,  as  wide,, 
hard,  and  straight  as  before.  We  entered  upon  this  part 
of  our  journey  with  some  misgivings.  We  had  left  pretty 
much  all  the  Unionism  of  the  section  behind  us.  The  turn- 
pike gate  seemed  to  have  over  it  the  inscription  over  Dante's 
Inferno  :  "  All  hope  abandon,  ye  who  enter  here."  Nev- 
ertheless Dante  did  not  abandon  his  hope,  nor  did  success 
abandon  him.  So  I  entered  the  infernal  region,  where  scenes 
even  more  horrible  than  those  that  met  his  eye,  often  meet 
the  eye  of  Him  who  rules  over  this,  as  well  as  the  nether 
hell,  for  here  is  crime,  not  punishment  alone,  and  crime 
against  the  innocent  and  holy  children  of  God. 

I  heard  some  deeds  worse  than  any  which  he  records,  but 


SLAVERY    DYING.  241 

I  dare  not  put  them  in  print.  What  they  must  be,  you  may 
imagine,  when  I  say  that  his  medieval  frankness,  not  to 
say  coarseness  of  speech,  and  his  wonderful  imagination 
have  not  conceived  of  scenes  of  barbarism,  which  men  coolly 
spoke  of  as  having  been  attempted  by  the  present  occupant 
of  the  grandest  of  these  estates — the  grandson  of  the  signer 
of  the  Declaration.  Nothing  very  marked  or  different  from 
other  places  attracts  you  as  you  enter  this  Inferno. 

The  land  lies  very  pleasant  to  the  eyes  —  great  fields 
stretch  out  before  you.  The  trees  gather  often  into  clusters, 
and  expand  at  times  in  grand  forests ;  the  corn,  grass,  clover, 
and  cattle,  and  the  human  crop  that  raise  or  tend  these, 
meet  your  eyes.  A  slumbering  stillness  is  in  the  air.  Only 
here  and  there  a  house  is  seen  ;  not  half  a  dozen  in  half  a 
dozen  miles.  The  houses  of  the  proprietors  are  generally 
situated  a  mile  or  two  from  the  road,  in  the  center  of  their 
farms,  and  reached  by  a  wagon  path  across  the  fields.  The 
quarters  of  the  negroes  are  alike  hidden.  The  fields  look 
as  if  of  capacity  for  extraordinary  culture,  but  are  poorly 
tilled.  One  or  two  places  are  evidently  well  cared  for.  The 
one  that  seems  the  most  like  a  Northern  place  is  Mr.  Ham- 
mond's, an  ex-member  of  Congress,  and  a  strong  Union  man, 
almost  the  only  one,  as  far  as  I  could  learn,  in  the  region. 

The  Carroll  estate  comprises  twelve  thousand  acres.  The 
turnpike  runs  for  miles  across  it.  One  piece  of  woods  is 
three  miles  wide.  This  will  give  some  idea  of  a  plantation, 
though  it  is  but  a  quarter  section  beside  some  of  those  further 
South.  It  also  suggests  one  reason  why  the  Southron  has 
so  long  ruled  this  country.  There  is  nothing  like  land  to 
implant  in  others  and  in  its  owner  the  sense  of  power. 
The  possession  of  the  treasures  in  the  vaults  of  Boston 
banks  would  not  give  its  owner  or  his  poor  neighbor  such 
a  realizing  sense  of  his  consequence  as  the  calling  of  this 
farm  his  own.  Our  riches  have  been  stored  in  factories  and 
banks,  in  city  houses  and  country  seats,  costly  but  small. 
16 


242  LETTERS   FROM   CAMP. 

Theirs  have  been  spread  out  over  the  earth  :  they  can  ride 
for  miles  on  their  own  land  ;  they  own  to  the  skies  and  the 
central  fires.  These  last  seem  now  to  be  breaking  through 
the  crust.  What  is  a  Fifth  Avenue  palace  or  millions  of 
stocks  to  such  possessions  ?  England's  nobility  have  main- 
tained their  preeminence  by  maintaining  the  proprietorship 
of  the  soil.  These  gentry  would  not  sell  a  foot  of  their 
land  ;  they  buy,  but  never  sell  ;  they  will  not  sell  a  white 
man  a  small  farm  any  sooner  than  they  would  a  black  one 
himself.  Now,  add  to  this  the  owning  of  the  men  who  till 
it,  and  of  their  wives  and  children,  and  you  have  an  aristoc- 
racy as  much  prouder  than  England's,  as  their  property  is 
higher.  These  landed  slaveholders  rule  this  State ;  but 
sixteen  thousand  of  them  in  a  half  million  of  white  inhabit- 
ants, probably  less  than  ten  thousand  of  this  class,  and  own- 
ing less  than  eighty  thousand  slaves  ;  yet  they  sit  supremely 
and  quietly  on  the  necks  of  their  white  as  well  as  black 
neighbors,  drain  the  State  of  enterprise,  and  keep  its  poorer 
classes  in  contemptuous  degradation. 

The  manor-house  is  situated  near  the  eastern  edge  of  the 
lot,  and  near  the  turnpike.  Turn  from  the  road,  and  go  south 
through  a  pleasant  shaded  roadway  for  about  a  third  of  a 
mile,  and  you  come  to  the  mansion.  Near  the  road  oh  the 
right  is  a  heap  of  slave  huts.  The  overseer's  residence,  a 
good-sized  but  shabby-looking  brick  building,  stands  among 
them.  Barns  and  sheds  are  close  at  hand ;  on  the  right, 
through  a  long  vista  of  trees,  an  eighth  of  a  mile  from  the 
road,  stands  the  revolutionary  house.  It  is  a  low,  spacious, 
wooden,  yellow  mansion,  enlarged  evidently  at  different 
times,  one  of  its  latter  additions  being  a  Catholic  chapel. 
It  has  none  of  the  costly  elegance  of  the  new  houses  of 
New  York  and  New  England,  but  looks  much  like  the  largest 
of  the  old  mansions,  made  a  good  deal  larger  by  plain  addi- 
tions. It  had  the  pomely,  comfortable  look  of  a  grandee  in 
his  lean  and  slippered  pantaloon. 


SLAVERY   DYING.  243 

I  turned  from  the  house  to  the  quarters  of  its  colored 
people,  as  they  euphemistically  call  slaves  here ;  they  shrink 
from  that  word.  I  rode  a  little  way  beyond  the  house,  hav- 
ing  no  invitation  to  stop  ;  had  I  stopped,  I  should  probably 
have  found  it  rather  difficult  to  get  away,  as  the  sympathies 
of  this  descendant  of  that  patriot  are  all  with  the  seces- 
sionists. 

As  I  rode  away,  I  met  a  slave  woman  dragging  herself 
along  to  her  work.  As  I  had  not  the  entre'e  to  the  master, 
I  thought  I  would  do  the  next  best  thing — cultivate  the 
acquaintance  of  his  most  precious  property.  I  asked  her 
how  many  colored  people  there  were  on  the  estate.  She 
said  there  was  better  than  a  hundred  in  these  quarters,  and 
there  were  other  quarters  above. 
"  Have  you  a  good  time  ?  " 

"  Yes,  Sundays.     We   have   to  work  hard  all  the  week, 
but  we  get  together  Sundays  and  enjoys  ourselves." 
"  Where  are  you  going  ?  " 

"  To  the  field  where  the  rest  of  the  gang  is  —  I  have  been 
to  nurse  my  baby." 
"How  old  is  it?" 
"  Four  months." 

Fearing  if  I  talked  longer  I  should  get  her  into  trouble, 
and  myself  too,  I  threw  her  a  quarter  and  bid  her  good 
by.  She  seemed  amazed  at  the  sight  of  the  bit  of  money. 
I  fancy  her  millionnaire  owner  had  never  given  her  as  much, 
except  at  Christmas,  in  all  his  life. 

The  houses  where  these  cattle  are  stabled  are  about  as 
comely  and  cleanly  as  a  pig-sty.  I  found  it  hard  to  believe 
that  so  rich  and  so  lordly  a  man  should  put  his  choicest 
creatures  in  such  huts.  I  contrasted  them  with  the  hand- 
some cottages  with  which  the  great  land-owners  of  the 
Hudson  delight  to  adorn  their  estates,  and  in  which  they 
require  their  tenants  to  live  in  a  neat  and  sometimes  elegant 
style.  But  then  these  are  compelled  to  treat  them  thus,  or 


244  LETTERS  FROM  CAMP. 

they  will  have  to  give  them  more  than  they  wish  to  bestow. 
A  neat  stone  dairy,  just  behind  these  huts,  showed  that  the 
proprietor  knew  how  to  set  off  his  estate  with  pretty  build- 
ings, if  he  only  dared  to  do  so. 

Should  he  put  his  slaves  in  such  houses,  they  must  be 
taught  to  respect  themselves ;  they  must  have  beds  and 
tables,  and  carpets  and  pictures,  and  all  the  little  and  big 
adornings  of  a  real  home.  Could  he  compel  the  mother  to 
work  behind  the  plow,  and  walk  back  and  forth  two  or 
three  miles  to  nurse  her  babe,  if  she  was  living  in  this  style  ? 
Could  he  drive  the  young,  pretty  girls,  some  of  whom  I 
saw,  like  field  oxen,  from  such  cosy  homes,  with  their  flower 
gardens,  and  inward  comforts  and  elegances  ?  His  culti- 
vated taste  would  revolt  at  that,  and  so  he  treats  them 
worse  than  he  does  his  horses  ;  he  has  scores  of  these,  hand- 
some blooded  animals,  and  their  stables,  close  by  the  negro 
huts,  far  surpass  them  in  respectability  and  comfort. 

I  drove  out  on  the  turnpike,  and  left  the  great  manor  of 
Charles  Carroll  of  Carrollton  with  profounder  detestation 
than  ever  before  of  the  demon  which  possessed  it,  and  which 
transformed  its  servants  into  slaves  and  its  masters  into 
tyrants. 

A  SLAVE  PEN. 

We  leave  the  Marshall  House  at  Alexandria,  with  its 
fresh  and  perpetual  memories  of  Ellsworth's  daring  and 
death,  follow  the  street  west  for  half  a  mile  or  more,  and 
reach  a  good-looking  brick  house,  with  a  high  fence  on  the 
east  side,  inclosing  a  yard,  and  some  lower  brick  and 
wooden  buildings  that  join  the  main  building  and  run  back 
from  the  street.  Over  the  windows  are  printed,  in  large 
black  and  white  letters,  like  the  institution  it  advertises, 
the  names  of  the  enterprising  proprietors  of  the  establish- 
ment, with  "Dealers  in  Slaves"  under-their  "Christian" 
names. 


SLAVERY   DYING.  245 

Here  is  one  of  the  depots  of  which  so  much  has  been  writ- 
ten. We  enter  the  rear  quarters.  Whitewashed  and  painted, 
they  have  no  very  offensive  look.  No  Pharisaic  tomb  ever 
looked  lovelier  to  a  Jewish  eye  than  this  to  a  Virginian's. 
The  difference  between  them  was  in  favor  of  the  latter. 
For  the  "inward  parts"  of  this  glittering  tomb  were 
sweet  and  attractive  to  his  corrupted  sense.  No  vampire 
ever  delighted  in  the  contents  of  a  grave  as  much  as  he  in 
the  living  creatures  that  had  tenanted  this  spot. 

The  inner  court  was  about  one  hundred  feet  square, 
paved  with  brick,  with  walls  not  less  than  twenty  feet  high, 
and  a  rude  shed  projecting  from  one  side,  as  a  shelter  from 
the  sun  or  rain.  Here  the  "cattle"  were  permitted  to  run 
at  large,  and  probably  were  sorted  according  to  age  or  con- 
dition. Here  the  purchasers  could  make  their  selections  ; 
and  hence  the  happy  property  passed  away,  like  the  pilgrims 
from  the  land  of  Beulah,  to  that  perfect  paradise,  the  plan- 
tation of  the  South. 

My  friend  with  me  said  he  had  often  heard  them  sing- 
ing as  he  had  passed  by.  That  shows  how  happy  they 
were,  and  how  cruel  it  was  of  the  fanatical  North  to  seek 
to  prevent  the  spreading  of  this  more  than  scriptural,  even 
Southern,  holiness  and  blessedness  over  all  these  lands. 

I  thought  of  Paul  and  Silas  in  prison  —  how  they  prayed 
and  sang  praises  unto  God.  Now,  as  then,  not  only  here, 
but  over  the  whole  region,  through  the  vast  prison  of 
slavery,  there  is  a  great  earthquake,  so  that  its  foundations 
are  shaken,  and  many  of  its  doors  are  being  opened,  and 
the  prisoners'  bands  are  loosed.  I  would  that  I  could  add, 
the  jailers  are  penitent  and  converted.  That  will  come  in 
due  time. 

In  this  court  were  spread  tables  for  some  of  the  soldiers 
—  a  great  change  in  one  short  month.  I  went  into  the  dun- 
geon. A  trap-door,  opening  in  the  floor  of  the  court,  let 
me  down  into  the  cell  underground,  moderately  spacious 


246  LETTERS   FROM   CAMP. 

and  immoderately  dirty.  As  I  stood  there  and  thought  of 
the  free  men  who  had  been  thrust  in  there,  and  of  their 
sufferings  and  sorrows,  my  heart  bled  very  fast.  I  re- 
membered that  though  light  had  broken  out  here,  there 
were  such  courts  and  cells  at  Baltimore  still  occupied  by 
slaves.  They  were  yet  all  over  one  half  of  our  land,  and 
I  could  but  pray  that  this  great  conflict  might  not  cease 
till  each  of  them,  like  this,  was  occupied  by  the  armies  of 
the  Republic,  and  their  former  occupants  were  standing  in 
the  fullness  of  their  long-sought  liberty.* 


A  RATIONAL  BEAST  AND  His  POSSIBILITIES. 

A  grove  of  handsome  trees,  tall  grass,  and  a  stirring 
breeze  are  the  accompaniments  of  this  talk.  I  hope  the 
reader  will  find  some  traces  of  their  presence  lingering  in 
it,  refreshing  him  with  a  vivacity  not  its  own. 

"As  sunbeams  stream  through  liberal  space, 
And  nothing  jostle  or  displace, 
So  waves  the  pine  tree  through  my  thought, 
And  fans  the  dreams  it  never  brought." 

Slaves  are  working  just  by  me,  and  will  give  the  letter 
the  flavor  of  the  palmetto  rather  than  the  pine.  One  of 
these  "beasts"  (they  are  as  hard  to  name  as  the  "t<au" 
the  Revelator  saw,  and  which  our  translators  did  into  that 
wretched  English)  draws  near  me  in  his  work.  I  bring 
my  thoughts  back  instantly  from  their  wanderings,  and 
concentrate  them  on  this  central  object  to-day  of  all  the 
civilized  world. 

"  You  like  slavery,  don't  you  ?  " 
"  No,  sir  ;  who  ever  liked  to  be  a  slave  ?  " 
"  I've   heard  many  say  that  you  who  were  slaves  pre- 
ferred it  to  freedom." 

*  See  Note  IX. 


SLAVERY    DYING.  247 

"  It  isn't  so  ;  I  should  like  to  be  free.  Everybody  wants 
to  be." 

"  What  do  you  want  to  be  free  for  ?  " 

"  What  a  queer  question  that  is  !  What  does  anybody 
want  to  be  free  for  ?  " 

"  But  you  can't  take  care  of  yourself,  if  free,  they  toll  me." 

"  Why  not,  sir  ?  We  take  care  of  ourselves  now,  and 
make  money  for  our  masters.  If  we  didn't,  they  would 
wish  us  dead  right  quick." 

Verily  hath  a  "  beast  "  discourse  of  reason.  I  was  as 
much  amazed  as  Jacques,  when,  like  me,  he  "  met  a  fool  in 
the  forest,"  and  found  before  he  got  through  with  him  that 
he  was  himself  the  greater  fool. 

I  am  afraid  I  committed  great  treason  by  such  conversation. 

I,  however,  thus  settled  a  very  knotty  question  in  natural 
history  that  has  long  troubled  the  savans,  namely,  if  the 
lower  orders  of  creation  are  endowed  with  the  faculty  of 
reason.  Not  only  was  that  problem  solved,  but  a  very  im- 
portant discovery  was  made,  that  they  could  talk  readily, 
and  in  as  good  English  as  the  human,  that  is,  the  white, 
race  can,  among  whom  they  live.  Some  of  them,  no  doubt, 
may  be  taught  to  read  and  write,  and  acquire  the  more 
recondite  sciences,  and  even  may  learn  to  cultivate  the 
domestic  feelings,  filial,  fraternal,  parental,  and  conjugal, 
and  possibly,  in  rare  cases,  can  be  taught  to  pray  and 
preach,  and  make  quite  respectable  Christian  brutes. 

I  congratulate  my  Southern  brethren  on  the  wonderful 
discovery  they  have  made,  that  such  an  order  of  beings  is 
found  among  those  creatures  over  whom  God  has  given  man 
dominion.  They  have  been  a  little  too  modest  about  pub- 
lishing to  the  world  their  treasure.  They  are  getting  bravely 
over  this,  however.  Under  the  sacred  inspirations  of  such 
teachers  as  Dr.  Smith,  Professor  Bledsoe,  and  as  many  other 
prophets  as  gathered  together  once  on  a  time  at  Mount 
Carmel,  they  have  become  convinced  that  they  should  not 


248  LETTERS   FROM   CAMP. 

i 
only  tell  to  the  listening  and  astonished  earth  the  wondrous 

tale,  but  should  fight  with  fire  and  sword  every  one  who 
will  not  accept  their  opinion  for  truth. 

I  am  constrained  to  confirm  this  statement  of  theirs, 
that  they  have  a  species  of  rational,  feeling,  Christian  crea- 
tures, which  (I  cannot  say  whom — that  pronoun  belongs  only 
to  the  human  race)  they  can  and  do  treat  precisely  as  they 
do  their  horses  and  pigs,  only  the  former  do  not  have  quite 
so  easy  a  time  or  quite  so  luxurious  living  as  the  latter. 
I  am  sorry  to  add  that  they  have  not  yet  perceived  the 
capacity  for  development  which  these  creatures  possess,  nor 
the  great  variety  of  important  uses  to  which  they  may  be 
applied.  They  ought  to  take  a  few  lessons  in  Goodyear, 
and  see  how  he  has  worked  his  patent  rubber  into  innumer- 
able forms,  and  so  work  up  their  patent  Negro  to  something 
near  his  capacity. 

Even  my  untutored  eye  discerns  that  it  is  susceptible  of 
immense  improvement,  and  of  employment  in  a  myriad  of 
ways  that  will  pay.  Excuse  that  Yankee  thought.  I  find 
it  is  not  totally  unknown  or  disliked  in  this  superior  clime. 
This  "  strange  beast,"  that  can  think,  and  feel,  and  talk, 
just  like  a  human  being,  should  not  be  confined  to  works 
that  a  steam-plow  and  reaper,  a  mere  ox  or  horse,  can  do 
as  well  as  he.  lie  could  be  trained,  I  am  positive,  to  the 
very  highest  of  those  labors  by  which  we  have  to  earn  our 
daily  bread.  Only  apply  the  right  kind  of  culture,  arid  give 
him  the  right  sort  of  feed,  and  he  will  relieve  the  divine 
Caucasian  of  much  of  the  drudgery  which  he  has  to  under- 
go, and  which  is  so  hard  in  this  hot  country,  and  so  de- 
grading to  that  dignified  head  of  creation. 

I  have  no  doubt  that  a  doctor  could  train  this  animal  so 
that  he  could  diagnose  as  well  as  himself,  and  might  be 
sent  on  those  long  midnight  journeys,  and  could  be  com- 
pelled to  go  through  those  painful  watchings  by  perilous 
couches,  which  exhaust  the  good  white  physician.  Sleeping 


SLAVERY   DYING.  249 

comfortably  in  his  bed,  lounging  comfortably  on  his  farm, 
he  could  send  this  creature,  after  being  Rareyfied  in  col- 
leges literary  and  medical,  on  these  laborious  missions. 
So  the  merchant  might  do  his  buying  and  selling,  "  shave  " 
and  be  "  shaved "  through  his  chattel  personal,  he  mean- 
while "loafing"  sumptuously  everyday.  So  the  lawyer 
could  get  up  and  get  off  his  pleas  ;  the  judge  make  up  and 
pronounce  his  decisions  ;  the  sheriff  execute  his  writs  ;  the 
general  drill  his  troops,  and  the  troops  themselves  be  drilled, 
—  all  by  this  admirable  proxy.  The  editor  could  write  those 
splendid  editorials  on  State-rights,  and  the  superiority  of 
Southern  statesmanship,  society,  religion,  and  civilization 
generally,  and  never  himself  write  a  line  or  think  a  thought 
on  the  inspiring  themes.  The  legislator  could  decree  and 
the  governor  execute  by  the  same  medium.  Even  the  min- 
isters, the  hardest  worked  of  all  male  people,  could  be  re- 
lieved by  using  the  gifts  the  gods  provide.  Wouldn't  it  be 
nice  to  feel  no  nervousness  creeping  over  you  as  Saturday 
comes  and  finds  you  with  no  beaten  oil  of  the  sanctuary 
wherewith  to  fill  the  pulpit  lamps  on  the  morrow  ?  Wouldn't 
it  be'pleasant  to  have  the  hot  Sunday's  sun  rise  upon  you 
with  no  premonitory  sweat  oozing  out  of  your  pores  at  the 
thought  of  the  work  before  you?  All  you  have  to  do  is 
to  select  one  of  the  purest  blood  of  this  breed,  send  him  to 
Randolph  Macon,  or  Emory  and  Henry,  where  they  know 
how  to  treat  and  train  them,  and  then  at  every  conference 
the  itinerant  rides  away  to  his  appointment  with  or  on  his 
factotum  (they  ride  on  them  in  Dahomey),  sets  him  to 
studying,  writing,  preaching,  visiting  (the  religious  sort), 
all  for  his  board  and  clothes,  — just  what  it  costs  to  keep 
his  horse,  —  feed  and  harness. 

If  they  wish  for  a  specimen  of  the  extraordinary  devel- 
opment this  creature  can  reach,  who  is  a  full  proof  of  the 
feasibility  of  my  plan,  I  can  bring  to  Maryland  one  of  this 
"  kind,"  that  was  born  and  trained  on  her  soil,  and  under 


250  LETTERS   FROM   CAMP. 

the  blessed  influence  of  this  benign  institution,  which  not 
one  of  her  ministers  dares  say  is  sinful,  and  many  say  is 
right.  This  Maryland  animal  has  been  trained  partly  under 
less  favorable  influences  of  freedom  and  equality,  and  hence 
is  not  as  advanced  as  he  would  have  been  had  he  staid  in 
the  holy  ordinance  of  slavery.  Yet,  despite  this  defect,  he 
can  as  far  surpass  the  greatest  of  the  human  orators  of  this 
State  in  art,  pathos,  reason,  dramatic  power,  and  all  the 
other  qualities  that  sweep  an  audience,  as  the  white  man 
by  nature  surpasses  the  black  something.  They  should  get 
this  fine  specimen  of  the  capacities  of  their  slave  creature, 
and  sh.ow  it  off  in  the  Maryland  Institute.  The  name  of 
this  excellent  proof  of  the  possibilities  of  slavery  and 
Africa,  is  Frederic  Douglass. 

But  I  am  getting  enthusiastic.  "  The  swelling  theme  " 
makes  the  style  swollen.  I  can  only  say  with  Hosea  Big- 
low  on  a  like  occasion,  — 

"  Forgive  me,  my  friends,  if  I  seem  to  be  het; 
But  a  subject  like  this  must  with  vigor  be  met." 

I  reluctantly  abandon  the  enticing  topic,  only  request- 
ing that  if,  like  Archimedes,  Pliny,  Ledyard,  and  many 
such,  I  perish  through  my  too  great  desire  to  enlarge  the 
bounds  of  human  knowledge,  I  shall  be  held  for  a  brief 
season  in  moderately  grateful  remembrance  by  my  friends 
in  this  region  for  these  discoveries  and  suggestions. 

I  have  talked  in  the  "  Hercles  vein,"  not  because  it  is 
the  only  vein  that  bleeds  to-day.  Bielow  the  titillation  of 
the  surface  flow  swift  and  strong  the  deep  currents  of 
sympathy  for  those  in  this  bounteous  land  who  are  bereft 
of  all  bounties.  How  plainly  do  I  hear  in  this  quiet  wood, 
far  from  the  noise  of  camp  and  street,  — 

"  The  still,  sad  music  of  humanity, 
Not  harsh  nor  grating,  but  of  amplest  power 
To  chasten  and  subdue." 


SLAVERY   DYING.  251 


ARLINGTON  WHEN  FIRST  CAPTURED. 

From  the  gateway  of  General  Lee's  grounds  the  road 
soon  enters  a  magnificent  grove,  as  wild  and  massy  as  a 
White  Mountain  forest ;  though,  unlike  that,  the  ground  is 
clear  of  underbrush,  so  that  one  can  take  in  at  a  glance 
large  spaces  of  the  grand  scenery.  How  cool  and  delight- 
ful is  the  change  from  the  hot  and  dusty  street  to  this 
charming  forest ! 

The  soldiers  of  the  New  York  Eighth  —  dapper,  small, 
and  smart  as  are  New  York  City  soldiers  —  are  scattered 
here  and  there  along  the  road,  lying  on  logs  or  stretched 
beside  their  tents.  They  give  a  novel  and  yet  already 
familiar  aspect  to  the  scene.  Winding  up  through  this 
landscape  and  woodscape  for  a  mile  or  so,  we  reached  the 
broad  summit  where  the  house  stands.  Trees  filled  the 
large  and  level  space  close  up  to  the  house.  In  among  the 
trees  stands  the  main  body  of  the  tents  of  the  regiment. 
The  house  is  a  spacious  brick  mansion,  old-fashioned,  gloomy, 
and  decidedly  seedy.  Great  pillars,  large  enough  for  a 
building  thrice  its  size,  support  a  portico.  Before  this  the 
lawn  rolls  down  over  a  score  or  so  of  acres  to  the  woods 
that  engirt  it.  Beyond  lies  the  placid  Potomac,  and  be- 
yond that  the  more  placid  Capitol,  glittering  in  the  western 
sun  as  brightly  as  though  no  traitor's  eye  had  ever  looked 
on  it  from  this  spot  enviously  and  murderously.  Entering 
the  house  you  find  the  old-fashioned  look  of  the  outside 
intensified.  It  seems  to  have  none  of  the  modern  con- 
veniences which  the  humblest  cottages  of  .the  North  enjoy. 
Fitted  out  elegantly  two  or  three  generations  ago,  it  looks 
as  much  out  of  place  as  the 'perfect  "one-horse  shay" 
among  the  fancy  turn-outs  of  Central  Park.  "  'Tis  sixty 
years  since,"  seems  written  over  everything.  High-back 
chairs,  high-post  bedsteads,  antique  and  very  ordinary  pic- 


252  LETTERS   FROM   CAMP. 

tures,  stag  antlers,  and  many  other  venerable  institutions, 
show  that  it  is  an  heir-loom,  and  not  of  the  living  present. 
Northern  houses  of  this  sort  do  riot  disdain  the  modern 
comforts  and  conveniences.  Gas  and  water  can  flow  be- 
tween old  timbers  as  well  as  new.  Modern  chairs  mix  in 
with  the  ancient  as  children  with  old  folks.  But  the  pride 
of  the  real,  Simon-pure,  no-mistake  Tom  Thumbs,  who  style 
themselves  F.  F.  V.'s,  is  to  have  everything  old.  Even  the 
children  here  are  probably  born  a  hundred  years  old.  Either 
pride  or  poverty,  perhaps  both,  keeps  the  house  in  such  a 
moldy  state.  Going  to  the  rear,  you  notice  the  inevitable 
negro  quarters,  detached  wings  running  from  each  end  of 
the  house,  and,  as  I  have  noticed  in  Maryland,  half  way 
between  the  mansion  and  the  stables.  These  buildings  are 
large  enough  to  accommodate,  cattle  fashion,  quite  a  num- 
ber of  head.  General  Lee  not  being  at  home,  I  leave  my 
card  with  his  servants. 

An  old  gray-headed  negro,  dressed  in  a  neat  black  suit, 
sat  on  one  of  the  door-sills.  I  looked  in,  and  found  a  cellar 
some  six  feet  deep,  into  which  some  broken  steps  descended. 
I  asked  him  if  those  were  his  quarters.  He  replied  in  the 
affirmative. 

"  Had  you  no  floor  ?  " 

"  Yes,  I  had  one,  but  the  rats  troubled  me  so  I  took 
it  up." 

"  How  long  have  you  lived  here  ?  " 

"  Several  years." 

"  Alone  ?  " 

"  Since  my  wife  died." 

"  Do  you  find  it  comfortable  down  there  ?  " 

"  0,  yes,  pretty  comfortable." 

I  looked  down.  There  was  an  excuse  for  a  bed  in  one 
corner,  an  old  broken  bit  of  a  stove,  a  little  table  with  a 
dish  or  two,  candle-ends,  etc.,  on  it,  a  broken  chair,  an  ax, 
a  billet  or  two  of  wood,  and  the  common  earthen  floor  of 


SLAVERY  DYING.  253 

a  cellar  ;  high  up  out  of  reach  was  a  dirty  window.  Here 
was  another  proof  of  the  old-fashioned  notions  that  rule 
this  region.  An  old  man  of  nearly  if  not  more  than  four- 
score years,  modest,  neat,  courteous,  living  in  a  cellar,  and 
in  as  much  worse  condition  as  any  pauper  I  ever  saw  as  a 
pauper's  is  worse  than  a  prince's.  My  ears  have  been 
stuffed  since  I  came  here  with  the  superior  condition  of  the 
slaves  to  the  free  blacks.  I  have  visited  two  of  the  grand- 
est estates  of  this  region,  the  Carrollton  Manor  and  Arling- 
ton Heights.  I  have  entered  more  than  one  of  the  free 
blacks'  humble  cottages,  and  I  must  say  my  eyes  saw  only 
filth  and  misery  in  the  one,  in  the  other  neatness,  self-respect, 
poverty,  but  pride  also  ;  yes,  good  reader,  pride  !  Why 
shouldn't  these  scions  of  a  mighty  race  have  some  of  their 
haughty  fathers'  feelings  ?  I  entered  one  of  the  hum- 
blest of  these  huts  near  the  Eelay.  The  floor  was  as 
white  as  a  Dutch  dame's  the  morning  after  washing-day. 
Near  the  door  stood  an  old  trunk,  the  gift,  probably,  of 
some  primeval  mistress,  —  perhaps  Noah's  wife's  to  Ca- 
naan's, her  granddaughter-in-law,  and  the  first  female  slave. 
( Vide  Dr.  Smith  and  other  very  learned  pro-slavery  com- 
mentators, passim.}  I  never  saw  a  cleaner  house  than  that 
humble  Christian's.  The  yard  was  swept  as  nice  as  the 
floor.  Yet  her  husband  had  been  a  slave,  and  was  then  of 
that  poor,  despised  company  of  free  blacks  whom  so  many 
here  are  ready  to  lift  up  their  heel  against.  I  have  seen 
no  slaves'  quarters  to  compare  with  these  bits  of  free  soil. 

I  left  the  old  man  so  tenderly  cared  for  by  those  whom 
he  has  served  so  long,  after  commending  him  to  Him  who 
was  as  despised  and  rejected  of  men,  and  who  had  not  even 
a  damp  cellar  wherein  to  lay  His  head.  Crossing  to  the 
opposite  buildings,  I  saw  a  comely  quadroon  or  octoroon 
washing.  The  floor  was  on  her  room,  and  half  a  dozen 
lively  chattels  on  the  floor.  The  breed  is  rather  interesting 
in  its  adolescent  state.  Young  lambs,  and  pigs,  and  dogs, 


254  LETTERS   FROM   CAMP. 

and  kittens  have  long  been  favorites  of  the  farm.  I  don't 
think  any  of  them  superior  to  the  younglings  of  this  species 
of  property.  I  found  myself  enjoying  the  gambols  of  these 
brown  lambkins.  It  is  really  a  fine-looking  creature.  Curly 
locks,  quite  too  long  for  a  lamb's  or  a  negro's ;  large,  laugh- 
ing eyes  ;  brown  but  well-cut  features,  much  more  closely 
resembling  a  Caucasian's  than  the  ape's  or  gorilla's,  to  which 
they  are  said  to  be  allied  ;  fine-turned  legs,  and  neat  little 
feet,  whose  hollow  did  not  make  a  very  great  hole  in  the 
ground,  as  they  went  capering  about  the  house  and  the 
yard,  —  these  are  some  of  the  characteristics  of  this  king 
of  beasts. 

I  asked  the  mother  (dam  perhaps  I  ought  to  say;  ma-dam 
somebody  will  some  time  say),  "  Who  do  you  belong  to  ?  " 

"  Mrs.  Lee." 

"  Are  you  a  member  of  the  Church  ?  " 

"  Yes,  the  Baptist." 

"  How  many  children  have  you  ?  "  (Pardon  me  for  using 
the  word  children.  She  talked  and  acted  so  much  like  a 
Christian  mother  I  didn't  like  to  say  "  young  ones.") 

"  Seven." 

"  Do  you  expect  to  be  free  ?  " 

"  Yes,  sir  ;  in  about  a  year  our  time  is  up." 
'  Do  you  want  to  be  free  ?  " 

"  Yes,  sir,  I  do." 

"  What  for  ?  " 

"  Because  I  do." 

Didn't  that  reason  show  the  woman  as  much  as  the  ba- 
booness?  Not  being  acquainted  with  the  latter' s  method  of 
reasoning,  I  cannot  be  sure,  but  it  struck  me  as  a  very  famil- 
iar and  conclusive  answer.  I  bade  her  good  by,  a  thing  I 
never  did  a  Northern  animal,  and  threw  some  parting  smiles 
at  the  jolly  little  contrabands  who  are  to  be  transformed  in 
a  year  or  so  from  creatures  that  are  appointed  as  meat  for 
man  (Genesis  ix.  3)  into  beings  made  in  the  likeness  of  God. 


SLAVERY   DYING.  255 


A    VERY    TENDER    CONSCIENCE. 

A  gentleman  in  our  neighborhood  supplied  some  of  the 
officers'  tables  with  milk.  When  Sunday  came  no  milk 
came.  Upon  inquiry  it  was  found  that  he  had  conscientious 
scruples  about  sending  them  milk  that  day.  As  they  had 
no  ice,  and  hence  must  be  left  destitute  of  this  agreeable 
addition  to  the  liquid  distillment  which  the  cooks  called 
coffee,  he  finally  relented  and  sent  the  milk,  but  would  take 
no  pay  for  it,  —  at  least  on  that  day.  Yet  this  gentleman 
was  a  secessionist,  a  slaveholder,  and  had  secured  a  valuable 
arid  beautiful  estate,  I  understood,  chiefly  through  the  sale 
of  human  flesh.  On  one  occasion  it  was  said,  thaf  having 
received  some  thirty-four  "  head  "  (the  very  word  I  have 
heard  used  in  speaking  of  slaves)  of  this  stock  as  a  marriage 
dowry,  —  what  a  gift  to  crown  those  sweet  and  sacred 
bonds  !  —  he  sold  thirty  of  them.  Were  the  King  of  Daho- 
mey's funeral  sacrifices  much  more  horrible  in  the  sight  of 
God  than  the  agonies  which  graced  this  Christian  wedding 
festival  ? 

Having  coined  their  blood  to  drachmas,  he  moved  hither 
with  his  fair  bride  and  her  remaining  body-guard,  and  in- 
vested the  drachmas,  the  price  of  innocent  blood,  in  a  beau- 
tiful farm.  Is  not  this  the  Potter's  Field  which  these  many 
times  thirty  pieces  of  silver  purchased  ? 

As  an  offset  to  this  slave-trading,  I  ought  to  set  another 
fact  in  his  history  of  late  occurrence,  in  which  he  refused 
to  sell  a  slave.  Some  of  our  brethren  hereabout,  and  yon- 
about,  too,  for  the  matter  of  that,  lay  much  stress  on  the 
fact  that  our  slaveholding  brethren  never  sell  their  slaves. 
Let  me  show  how  this  virtue  is  illustrated  in  the  life  of  my 
hero.  A  short  time  since,  a  free-  colored  man  from  the 
South,  I  think  from  South  Carolina,  whose  wife  and  children 
were  the  "property"  of  this  gentleman,  came  here  to  see 


256  LETTERS   FROM   CAMP. 

him.  Whether  invited,  or  whether  a  fugitive  from  Sccessia, 
I  know  not.  He  is  said  to  be  a  man  of  property,  and  was 
anxious  to  invest  this  property  in  his  family.  The  wife  be- 
ing old,  and  lame,  and  fleshy,  and  otherwise  of  no  great  pe- 
cuniary advantage  to  her  "  owner,"  was  graciously  and 
freely  given  to  her  liege  lord  ;  though  I  understand  no  free 
papers  were  given  her,  so  as  to  make  the  deed  of  gift  of  any 
real  value.  But  her  daughter,  the  only  child  left,  a  good- 
looking  girl  of  sweet  sixteen,  he  would  not  sell  to  her  own 
father.  The  father  offered  thirteen  hundred  dollars  for  his 
daughter,  but  was  refused. 

Will  not  that  do  for  a  modern  illustration  of  the  ancient 
gnat  and  camel  text  ?  A  man  who  would  not  sell  milk  on 
Sundays,  and  would  not  sell  a  father  his  own  daughter, 
would  sell  a  score  or  two  of  his  brothers  and  sisters  into 
hopeless  bondage,  and  with  their  blood  and  bones  live  in 
elegance  and  abundance  !  Did  he  not  strain  at  a  gnat  and 
swallow  a  whole  herd  of  camels  ?  What  if  I  should  cap  the 
climax  of  this  narrative  by  telling  you  that  this  conscien- 
tious soul-trader  and  soul-holder  is  a  minister  of  our  Lord 
and  Savior  Jesus  Christ  ?  It  is  even  so.  He  is  the  elected 
guide  and  guardian  of  the  morals  and  piety  of  a  very  influ- 
ential portion  of  this  community  ;  and  what  is  most  aston- 
ishing is,  that  not  the  least  objection  is  even  thought  of  be- 
cause of  this  conduct.  I  heard  of  some  ladies  who  refused 
to  attend  on  his  worship  because  he  was  a  secessionist.  I 
heard  others  complain  that  he  was  too  convivial  in  his  hab- 
its ;  but  I  heard  nobody  find  any  fault  with  him  for  holding, 
selling,  or  refusing  to  sell,  these  children  of  a  common  Fa- 
ther, brothers  and  sisters  of  a  common  Savior. 

I  looked  often  at  his  tasty  chapel,  but  could  not  make  up 
my  mind  to  desecrate  the  Sabbath  by  attending  upon  his 
ministrations.  But  happening  to  be  at  a  quarterly  confer- 
ence of  our  own  spotless  and  wrinklelcss  Church,  where  two 
slaveholders  were  nominated  by  the  preacher  in  charge  for 


SLAVERY   DYING.  257 

stewards,  and  elected  unanimously,  without  so  much  as  an 
"affectionate  admonition"  from  the  excellent  presiding  el- 
der, I  thought  1  was  myself  getting  into  the  gnat-straining 
condition  by  over-scrupulousness.  So  I  concluded,  being 
with  the  Romans,  to  do  as  they  did,  and  see  how  near  this 
worthy  rector  and  I  came  to  worshiping  the  same  God. 

Do  you  want  to  know  how  he  looked  and  spoke  ?  De- 
scriptions of  such  persons  will  be  curiosities  of  literature 
eagerly  perused  by  future  generations.  This  was  a  true 
successor  of  the  apostles.  No  broken  chain  of  descent  was 
his,  joined  together  by  martyrial  hands,  and,  perchance,  by 
those  of  laymen  even,  often  completely  sundered,  or  united 
only  by  that  unseen,  and  hence,  for  ecclesiastical  purposes, 
useless  Spirit  of  God,  that  carried  the  Church  into  the  wil- 
derness and  supported  her  there.  No  ;  the  bright  links, 
clear  and  defined,  and  often  of  the  finest  gold,  as,  for  in- 
stance, Alexander  Borgia,  Joan,  Leo  X.,  Laud,  and  a  host 
of  others,  of  whom  not  this  world  nor  any  other  was  worthy, 
glittered  in  the  chain  that  bound  this  servant  to  his  Master. 

You  expect  a  hard-featured,  hard-voiced,  hard-mannered 
man,  with  tones  like  the  snapping  of  a  slave-whip,  and  the 
manners  of  Haley  and  Legree  combined.  You  don't  under- 
stand human  nature.  So  many  paint  Nero,  who  was  really 
the  most  elegant  gentleman  of  his  age.  We  must  remem- 
ber that  only  in  the  other  world  does  the  inner  nature  body 
forth  itself  in  the  outer  form.  Here  the  reverse  is  apt  to 
be  true.  The  finest  natures  are  hidden  in  the  least  expres- 
sible forms,  and  the  vilest  are  not  unfrequently,  like  Burr, 
and  Goethe's  Mephistophiles,  witty,  wise,  and  polished,  hand- 
some, gay,  and  sober,  a  perfect  man  in  the  worldly  sense 
of  perfection. 

The  preacher  aforesaid  is  a  middle-aged,  gray,  and  bald- 
headed  gentleman,  of  pleasant  address,  with  a  quiet,  gentle, 
soft,  pathetic  tone  and  manner.  I  never  heard  the  service 
read  so  beautifully.  It  had  a  melting  cadence  that  glided 
11 


258  LETTERS  FROM  CAMP. 

into  your  secret  heart.  There  was  none  of  the  hard  and 
formal  style  of  the  mere  reader,  none  of  the  airs  of  the  rhet- 
orician ;  but  a  subdued  grace,  yet  full  of  life,  that  was  very 
fascinating.  With  the  constant  undertone  of  my  whole  moral 
being  conflicting  with  the  sounds  that  met  my  car,  I  could 
not  but  feel,  as  he  read  it,  a  newer  and  richer  quality  in  that 
admirable  service.  Yet  how  some  of  the  sentences  he  read 
startled  me!  I  could  but  think  of  the  medieval  legend 
of  the  wonderful  preacher,  who,  arrayed  in  black  vestments, 
swept  his  audience  with  most  pathetic  and  powerful  appeals, 
and  after  he  had  left  them  they  found  it  was  the  archfiend 
himself  that  had  been  thus  lifting  them  to  heaven.  These 
were  some  of  the  solemn  phrases  that  thrilled  me  so  strange- 
ly, while  he  plaintively  uttered  them  and  I  fervently  followed 
him:  "We  sinners  do  beseech  thee  to  hear  us,  0  Lord  God; 
and  that  it  may  please  thee  to  show  thy  pity  upon  all  pris- 
oners and  captives  ;  that  it  may  please  thee  to  defend  and 
provide  for  the  fatherless  children  and  widows,  and  all  that 
are  desolate  and  oppressed.  0  God,  merciful  Father,  that 
despisest  not  the  sighing  of  a  contrite  heart,  nor  the  desire 
of  such  as  are  sorrowful,  mercifully  assist  our  prayers  that 
we  make  before  thee,  in  all  our  troubles  and  adversities, 
whensoever  they  oppress  us,  and  graciously  hear  us,  that 
those  evils  which  the  craft  and  subtilty  of  the  devil  gr  man 
worketh  against  us  may  be  brought  to  naught ;  that  thy 
servants,  being  hurt  by  no  persecutions,  may  evermore  give 
thanks  unto  thee  in  thy  holy  Church,  through  Jesus  Christ 
our  Lord."  The  psalms  for  the  day  were  cxliv.,  cxlv.,  cxlvi. 
In  them  he  read  these  words  :  "  Save  me  and  deliver  me 
from  the  hand  of  strange  children,  whose  mouth  talketh  van- 
ity, and  their  right  hand  is  a  right  hand  of  iniquity.  .  .  .  That 
there  be  jio  leading  into  captivity,  and  no  complaining  in 
our  streets.  .  .  .  The  Lord  loose th  men  out  of  prison.  The 
Lord  helpeth  them  that  are  fallen.  As  for  the  way  of  the 
ungodly,  he  turncth  it  upside  down." 


SLAVERY   DYING.  259 

His  sermon  was  a  practical  discourse  on  a  Christian's  tri- 
als, and  the  comforts  which,  through  the  Spirit,  he  could 
extract  from  them.  But  I  was  preaching  a  good  many  ser- 
mons during  this  part  of  the  service.  I  was  asking,  "  Does 
he  bring  his  bond-servants  around  him  for  daily  prayer  and 
religious  instruction  ?  Why  are  they  not  here  at  church 
with  him  ?  Does  he  ever  go  to  the  poor  little  chapel  to 
which  the  wicked  pride  of  the  community  exiles  them  and 
their  kindred,  and  there  comfort  them  with  such  readings 
and  such  discourses  as  these  ?  "  Especially  I  was  anxious 
to  preach  a  short  sermon  to  him  on  the  text  that  was  printed 
around  the  stained  window  in  the  chancel  :  "  Repent  ye  ! 
for  the  kingdom  of  heaven  is  at  hand."  I  presume  I  should 
have  shocked  the  audience  more  than  the  rude  Baptist  did 
his  hearers  if  I  had  read  that  third  chapter  of  Matthew,  and 
given  its  needed  and  divine  application.  I  could  not  keep 
my  eyes  off  that  text.  I  thought  it  is  not  possible  for  this 
congregation  to  worship  here  and  be  .unmindful  of  its  mean- 
ing. Yet  I  was  probably  the  only  person  that  ever  saw  it 
that  read  it  in  this  true  and  solemn  light.  Thank  God,  the 
kingdom  of  heaven  is  at  hand.  These  troops,  as  those  that 
gathered  round  John,  are  unconsciously,  and  many  of  them 
unwillingly,  assisting  in  ushering  it  in. 

The  march  of  events  in  the  political,  the  religious,  the 
social  world,  all  show  that  He  is  soon  to  appear  who  will 
unloose  these  heavy  burdens,  and  let  the  oppressed  go  free, 
and  break  every  yoke.  His  fan  is  in  his  hand,  and  lie  will 
thoroughly  purge  His  floor.  How  glorious  He  appears  in 
this  apparel,  traveling  in  the  greatness  of  His  strength!  As 
the  Liberator  of  His  enslaved  children  He  shines  forth  upon 
foes  and  formalists  of  this  land  of  promise.  His  shoe-latchet, 
not  only  His  most  earnest  advocates  and  forerunners,  but 
much  more  these  proud  transgressors,  are  unworthy  to  stoop 
down  and  unloose.  Blessed  is  He  that  cometh  in  the  name 
of  the  Lord.  Hosanna  in  the  highest ! 


260  LETTERS  FROM   CAMP. 

That  tenderness  of  conscience  which  I  have  not  spoken  of 
as  wrong  in  itself,  but  only  strange  in  contrast  with  the  hard- 
ness of  the  same  conscience  in  other  and  infinitely  more  im- 
portant matters,  that  evident  apprehension  of  the  spiritual 
significance  of  the  word  of  God  and  of  prayer,  I  can  but 
think,  show  that  in  him  yet  live  the  germs  of  a  divine  life. 
May  these  germs  burst  the  rocky  soil  of  the  hideous  sin 
which  now  encases  them,  and  blossom  into  beautiful  and 
fruitful  life.  May  he  soon  say  to  that  congregation,  but  a 
very  few  of  whom  are  partakers  of  that  sin  by  actual  slave- 
holding,  and  some  of  whom  I  know  shrink  from  it  as  imper- 
iling their  own  salvation, — may  he  say  to  them,  "I  have  re- 
pented ;  I  have  brought  forth  works  meet  for  repentance. 
I  have  laid  the  ax  at  the  root  of  the  tree.  I  give  my  slaves 
their  liberty.  I  give  them  education,  respectability,  and,  so 
far  as  I  can  by  precept  and  example,  I  give  them  the  grace 
which  my  Savior  has  given  to  me."  What  rejoicing  will  bo 
in  that  Church,  in  that  neighborhood,  in  this  State,  when 
he,  or  one  like  him,  shall  thus  stand  up  for  Jesus,  and  shall 
proclaim  by  act,  as  well  as  word,  that  the  great  and  accept- 
able day  of  the  Lord  has  here  come. 


LETTERS   FROM  CAMP. 


III.     PROFIT    AND   LOSS    AFTER    BULL   RUN. 

BALTIMORE,  Wednesday,  July  24. 

# 

N  a  straw  pallet,  spread  on  a  few  rough,  wet  boards, 
lying  loosely  over  the  grassy  ground,  under  leaky 
canvas,  in  the  generally  damp  and  sticky  atmos- 
phere of  a  tent  in  a  shower,  I  am  writing  my  last 
letter  from  the  seat  of  war.  A  bit  of  candle,  dimly  burning, 
stuck  in  a  tin  cup,  standing  on  the  end  of  a  valise,  acts  as 
a  gas-burner.  One  of  the  private  soldiers  lies  stretched  in 
his  blanket  near  me  asleep,  dreaming  of  the  home  he  is 
hoping  so  soon  to  see.  Round  about  are  the  odds  and  ends 
of  a  camp-tent,  such  as  everybody  ought  to  see,  for  at  least 
one  week  in  a  year.  But  a  sword  hanging  on  the  rear  pole, 
and  a  musket  or  two  on  the  floor,  with  haversacks,  knap- 
sacks, fatigue-caps,  huge  gray  blankets,  and  sundry  other 
military  knickknacks,  give  the  spot  a  little  more  of  the  Church 
militant  air  than  it  has  in  those  heavenly  seats. 

Stereoscopic  pictures  are  popular;  and  a  true  stereoscope 
delights  in  the  little  homely  everj^-day  nothings  that  make 
up  our  every-day  life.  So  this  last  look  of  your  correspon- 
dent may  not  be  out  of  place,  as  he  sits  d  la  Turk,  with  his 

(261) 


262  LETTERS   FROM   CAMP. 

paper  on  his  knee,  in  the  only  silent  hours  of  a  camp  clay, 
those  that  are  close  on  to  midnight,  bringing  to  an  end  his 
long  discourses,  to  which  some  readers  may  have  given,  he 
trusts,  an  attent  ear. 

The  Monday  when  the  tidings  of  our  reverses  came  in 
was  dark  and  rainy,  but  the  news  was  far  darker  than  the 
day.  The  copperheads  seemed  to  think  that  the  sky  was 
wonderfully  clear  and  warm,  and  were  sunning  themselves  in 
great  crowds  at  the  corners  where  the  secession  papers,  the 
Sun,  Exchange,  and  South,  are  published.  The  poison  of  asps 
was  under  and  upon  their  lips.  Their  mouths  were  full  of 
cursing  and  bitterness,  and  their  feet  would  have  been  swift 
to  shed  blood,  had  it  not  been  for  the  military  power,  which 
measurably  awed  them. 

How  changeable  are  the  affairs  of  this  world  !  Sunday 
was  the  happiestf,  day  Washington  has  ever  known ;  Monday 
the  saddest.  Light  was  on  every  Union  countenance  here. 
The  forces  of  the  nation  were  moving  swiftly  to  the  desired 
goal.  The  enemy  fled  before  them.  Many  prophets  were 
crying,  "  Within  forty  days  and  secession  shall  be  over- 
thrown." Suddenly  the  cry  comes,  "We  are  retreating;  we 
are  defeated  ;  we  are  annihilated."  Beauregard  will  be  in 
Washington  by  midnight.  So  swift  treads  sorrow  on  the 
heels  of  joy.  Everybody  gave  up  everything  as  lost.  The 
secessionists  declared,  and  the  Unionists  half  believed,  that 
Lincoln  would  make  another  secret  flight  through  Baltimore. 
Extra  guards  were  set  around  the  camps,  and  a  thoroughly 
stormy  and  gloomy  night  set  down  on  the  homes  and  hearts 
of  all  this  region. 

But  the  morning  cometh,  if  also  the  night,  and  the  gray 
light  of  a  new  dawn  began  to  glimmer  around  the  great  dis- 
aster. We  began  to  hear  courageous  words  from  soldiers 
and  civilians.  One  Baltimore  man  said  he  could  march  up 
to  a  masked  battery ;  another,  that  he  must  certainly  shoulder 
his  musket;  another  was  entreating  General  Banks  to  supply 


PKOFIT  AND  LOSS  AFTER  BULL  RUN.      263 

the  Union  men  with  arms.  They  boldly  withstood  the  se- 
cessionists around  their  own  newspaper  batteries, — no  longer 
masked, — and  defended  the  cause  of  the  nation  in  her  houj 
of  peril.  The  soldiers  were  equally  cheerful.  Their  home- 
sickness disappeared  in  a  moment.  They  were  ready  to 
march  to  Virginia.  I  saw  some  of  the  Wisconsin  troops  on 
Tuesday  morning.  "  Where  are  you  going  ?  "  I  asked. 
"  To  Richmond  or  to  death,"  was  the  reply.  This  rallying 
and  strengthening  of  spirits  was  one  of  the  gleams  of  light. 

A  great  disaster  has  befallen  the  national  cause.  What 
is  it,  and  what  are  its  consequences  ?  Has  it  left  us  worse 
or  better  than  we  were  when  this  correspondence  began  ? 
Have  we  made  any  positive  advance  in  the  past  three  months  ? 
Shall  we  succeed  ?  If  not,  what  then  ?  Much  had  been 
done.  When  the  national  troops  began  to  pour  through 
this  city  and  State,  three  months  ago,  the  capital  was  in  the 
greatest  peril.  No  fortifications,  no  troops,  no  preparations 
for  defense.  The  enemy  were  at  Harper's  Ferry,  Alexan- 
dria, and  in  Baltimore.  Insolent,  and  flushed  with  Sumter 
victories,  they  boasted  that  the  Capitol  should  be  desecrated 
with  their  flag  before  the  first  of  May.  Maryland  was  in 
the  hands  of  the  mob.  The  bridges  were  burned,  and  the 
secession  legislature  was  called  together.  The  AVest  was 
as  weak  and  undefended  as  the  East. 

Now  we  have  strong,  well-armed,  and  occupied  forts  on 
the  heights  of  Arlington  and  Alexandria.  We  have  driven 
the  enemy  from  Missouri  and  Western  Virginia.  We  have 
put  down  insurrection  in  Baltimore,  and  banished  all  armed 
opposition  from  the  borders  of  the  State.  We  have  the 
capital  safe.  We  have  expelled  the  foe  from  Harper's 
Ferry.  We  have  raised  and  equipped  an  immense  army,  won 
many  victories,  and  for  a  time  filled  the  rebels  with  fear  and 
despair.  We  have  developed  a  military  spirit  of  the  grand- 
est and  deepest  fervor,  and,  not  least,  have  completely  swept 
from  the  land  that  silly  ostrich  of  a  non-coercionist.  Why, 


264  LETTERS  FROM  CAMP. 

I  was  up  in  Harford  County  yesterday,  and  heard  some 
goodish  country  farmers  say  they  were  not  secessionists  and 
not  coercionists.  I  looked  on  them  as  I  would  on  pre-Adam- 
ite  fossils  ;  they  seemed  almost  as  historic  and  venerable 
as  the  bits  of  bricks  which  mark  the  pleasant  site  of  Cokes- 
bury  College.  When  I  heard  that  same  ancient  doctrine 
earnestly  advocated  by  a  gentleman  of  that  rural  district, 
whose  clever  discourse  has  a  nipping  and  an  eager  air,  I 
could  not  but  think  of  Scott's  Antiquary,  and  such  Dryas- 
dust Old  Mortalities,  so  long  has  that  once  powerful  humbug- 
been  gathered  to  its  fathers.  Yet,  three  months  ago,  no 
April  ephemeron  buzzed  more  conceitedly  and  authoritatively. 
We  have  to  grow  by  degrees  in  any  knowledge,  pleasant 
or  painful.  The  threats  of  disunion  it  was  never  supposed 
would  be  carried  out.  Our  duty  to  God  and  liberty  com- 
pelled us  to  put  those  threats  to  the  test.  The  secession 
of  South  Carolina  dissipated  our  dreams  as  to  the  fanciful 
character  of  the  long-threatened  dissolution.  It  became  a 
political  reality.  "It  will  not  be  general,"  said  we.  Virginia 
proved  that  an  error.  "It  will  not  really  assume  a  military 
and  aggressive  form."  Sumter  settled  that  question.  "But  a 
great  uprising,  a  great  military  armament,  a  great  expres- 
sion of  the  determination  of  the  government  to  maintain 
itself  will  scatter  the  armed  and  ferocious  mob."  Missouri 
and  Western  Virginia  seemed  to  prove  this  theory  true. 
But  Bull  Run  has  made  it  thin  air.  We  .see  that  the  police 
service  is  no  longer  to  be  the  legitimate  business  of  the 
government.  It  will  have  to  light,  to  light  desperately,  per- 
chance for  its  very  existence.  We  have  risen  to  the  obli- 
gations of  previous  hours.  Shall  we  to  those  that  are  now 
being  laid  upon  us  ?  The  people  will.  The  government, 
civil  and  military,  must.  The  deadly  struggle  is  coming 
upon  us.  It  will  slay  as  many  reputations  as  men.  If  the 
officers  of  the  State  and  the  army  are  not  equal  to  the  crisis, 
they  must  give  way  to  those  who  are. 


PKOFIT   AND   LOSS   AFTER   BULL   RUN.  265 

Be  assured  the  people  will  not  give  over  this  effort  to  de- 
liver themselves  from  an  infamous  thralldom  without  a  strug- 
gle infinitely  surpassing  that  of  the  last  century.  And  be 
assured,  too,  that  in  this  struggle  the  primal  cause  and  curse 
will  be  throttled  to  death.  A  feud  of  nearly  two  hundred 
and  fifty  years'  standing  is  being  settled  to-day.  If  the 
war  holds  on  for  a  twelvemonth  it  will  have  only  one  phase. 
Everything  else  will  be  swept  away,  and  one  feeling  fill 
every  heart.  Shall  the  slave  power  on  this  continent  be 
supreme,  or»be  utterly  blotted  out?  Two  hundred  and  forty 
years  ago  the  seed  was  sown.  At  Jamestown  a  load  of 
negro  slaves  was  landed,  at  Plymouth  a  band  of  Christian 
pilgrims.  Within  a  few  years  of  that  date,  when  the  busi- 
ness had  become  brisk  in  Virginia,  the  Dutch  slave-traders 
thought  they  would  test  the  cupidity  of  the  Puritans,  and  a 
cargo  entered  Boston  Harbor.  It  was  refused  a  landing 
and  driven  from  the  province.  Then  was  the  seed  sown  out 
of  which  this  bloody  harvest  is  being  reaped. 

The  slave  power  has  always  ruled  the  continent.  It  ruled 
the  colonies,  it  ruled  the  British  cabinets  as  long  as  we  were 
colonies  ;  it  was  no  small  element  in  causing  the  Revolu- 
tion, as  Jefferson  said  in  his  Declaration.  The  Revolution 
was  fought  in  the  interests  of  freedom,  and  against  the  real 
slave  power,  which  was  intensely  Tory.  Hence  all  the  Rev- 
olutionary patriots  were  abolitionists.  But,  the  battle  won, 
slavery  again  asserted  its  supremacy,  and  soon  won  it.  The 
Constitution  recognized  it.  Washington  signed  a  fugitive 
slave  bill,  and  Jefferson  annexed  Louisiana  in  its  interest. 
It  caused  the  war  of  1812,  the  war  with  Mexico,  and  the 
present  war.  It  is  met  to-day  on  its  own  merits.  Our 
statesmen  do  not  yet  avow  it,  but  they  feel  it.  We  may 
have  to  fight  for  political  existence,  for  personal  liberty  even. 
Any  treaty  of  peace  now  made  would  leave  us  colonies,  de- 
spised more  than  their  lowest  slaves.  We  may  have  to  hear 
our  Patrick  Henrys,  Otises,  Adamses,  and  Warrens,  sum- 


266  LETTERS   FROM   CAMP. 

moning  us  to  the  last  fight  for  our  liberties.  If  so,  no 
quarter  will  be  shown  to  slavery.  That  or  we  must  die. 
As  to  the  result  there  can  be  no  doubt.  If  our  fathers, 
weak  and  few,  and  scattered  over  an  immense  territory, 
drove  out  the  proudest  and  strongest  nation  in  the  world, 
because  of  vmere  political  disfranchisement,  we  shall  trample 
under  our  feet  the  accursed  system  that  would  rob  us  of 
honor,  liberty,  and  life  itself.  We  are  face  to  face  with 
savages,  with  devils.  The  first-born  of  Satan  is  at  our 
throats.  Shapes  hot  from  hell  rush  upon  our  araiies.  "We 
take  no  prisoners  "  is  their  motto.  A  soldier,  I  was  told, 
in  the  late  battle  dragged  some  half  dozen  wounded  com- 
rades to  a  ravine  and  fountain,  where  he  was  tending  them. 
While  thus  engaged  a  company  of  rebels  came  up  and  he 
escaped.  But  every  wounded  soldier  was  bayoneted. 

Be  not  astonished  at  these  things.  The  system  they  are 
defending  surpasses  in  iniquity  any  on  the  face  of  the  earth. 
What  can  it  breed  but  hell-hounds  ?  And  yet  but  yester- 
day, on  the  blessed  Sabbath,  I  could  not  make  a  good  old 
Baltimore  conference  brother  confess  that  slavery  was  sin- 
ful. Nay,  he  expressly  and  emphatically  denied  it. 

"  O  wisdom,  thou  art  fled  to  brutish  beasts, 
And  men  have  lost  their  reason." 

This  event  will  preeminently  teach  us  our  dependence  on 
God.  We  had  begun  to  have  too  much  confidence  in  our- 
selves. We  thought  the  enemy  was  flying  so  steadily  and 
universally,  that  the  affair  was  to  close  without  any  especial 
humiliation  before  God  ;  but  we  are  brought  to  our  senses. 
We  shall  have  to  call  upon  Him  from  whom  alone  cometh 
salvation.  Unless  He  goes  forth  with  us,  we  march  in  vain. 
Let  the  Church  cry  unto  God,  cry  mightily,  cry  earnestly. 
Thus,  and  thus  alone,  shall  the  nation  conquer. 

Again,  this  repulse  was  needed  to  bring  about  the  only 
object  to  which  this  war  must  tend,  in  which  it  must  be 


PKOFIT   AND   LOSS   AFTER   BULL   RUN.  267 

consummated,  if  it  be  really  successful.  Had  we  marched 
easily  and  triumphantly  to  Richmond,  we  should  have  had 
an  armistice  and  terms  of  re-union,  which  would  have  left 
Slavery  in  full  power  ;  slightly  shorn  of  his  locks,  yet  soon 
to  have  them  grow  again.  Repulses  and  defeats  strengthen 
a  good,  ruin  a  bad,  cause.  The  object  of  God  is  to  liberate 
these  children  of  His,  who  have  cried  day  and  night  unto 
Him  for  these  many  generations.  Every  defeat  brings  out 
this  purpose  the  more  clearly.  The  action  of  Congress  to- 
day was  bolder  than  it  has  ever  been.  It  will  grow  in  cour- 
age as  disaster  grows  upon  us.  The  defeat  at  Bunker's  Hill 
paved  the  way  to  the  Declaration.  The  defeat  next  year  at 
Long  Island  only  invigorated  the  spirits  and  nerved  the  arm 
of  the  people. 

So  will  it  be  now.  The  ferocity,  the  inhumanity,  the 
fiendishness  of  our  foes,  will  only  make  us  say  that  the  cause 
that  changes  them  to  devils  shall  be  extirpated.  We  shall 
advance  to  Senator  Trumbull's  position,  and  declare  slavery 
abolished  in  the  revolting  States.  I  heard  a  Maryland  gen- 
tleman say  but  yesterday,  that  he  wished  the  government 
would  issue  that  decree  immediately.  It  will  be  issued  if 
the  war  is  prolonged.  Let  it  go  forward.  What  is  your 
poverty,  what,  indeed,  is  the  agony  now  rending  a  great 
multitude  of  Rachels,  North  and  South,  compared  with  the 
poverty  and  distress  of  the  hundreds  of  thousands,  of  the 
millions  upon  millions,  of  God's  dear  children,  in  this  fail- 
land,  for  these  centuries  of  bondage  !  The  cup  is  being 
commended  to  our  own  lips  of  which  they  have  drank  so 
constantly  and  so  deeply.  They  were  despised  and  rejected 
of  men, — men  of  sorrows,  and  acquainted  with  griefs.  We 
hid,  as  it  were,  our  faces  from  them.  They  were  despised, 
and  we  esteemed  them  not.  In  my  intercourse  here  I  have 
heard  frequent  and  bitter  denunciations  of  their  brethren 
and  sisters,  from  the  lips  of  elegant  and  excellent  Christian 
ladies.  I  have  heard  some  such  inhuman  utterances  by 


268  LETTERS   FROM   CAMP. 

Massachusetts  and  New  York  ladies,  but  they  had  nothing 
of  the  ferocious  intensity  of  contempt  and  hatred  which 
marked  these  speakers.  I  could  easily  see  how  the  seces- 
sion feeling  rages  the  hottest  with  the  female  part  of  the 
community,  from  Baltimore  to  New  Orleans,  when  I  heard 
the  modest  lips  of  godly  matrons  so  full  of  ungodly  speeches 
concerning  their  colored  neighbors.  All  the  Baltimore  ladies 
are  not  like  those  above  mentioned.  Some  of  the  most  ten- 
der-hearted that  I  have  ever  known  are  here,  showing  their 
religion  by  their  treatment  of  the  degraded  class  among 
whom  their  lot  is  cast. 

Let  the  fact  teach  us  that  He  who  made  us  of  one  blood 
is  leading  this  nation,  stuffed  with  pride  and  insolence,  into 
the  fires  that  shall  humiliate  and  purify.  These  thoughtless, 
cruel-hearted  mothers,  and  wives,  and  sisters  shall  bleed 
and  cry,  and  come  down  from  their  seats  of  pride,  and, 
like  the  desolated  Egyptian  haughtinesses  of  old,  shall  sit 
down  in  the  dust  beside  their  despised  bondwomen,  and  seek 
for  comfort  from  these  long-suffering,  and  hence  deep-expe- 
rienced, souls. 

This  is  some  of  the  sweet  juice  the  bruised  reed  of  pride 
and  hope  yields  to  your  taste.  Is  it  unpalatable  ?  Wait 
till  the  sorrow  is  yet  sharper,  and  you  may  find  your  taste 
purged  to  apprehend  its  chaste  and  spiritual  refreshment. 


THE  DAT  DAWNS: 


"THE    YEAR    OF    MY    REDEEMED    IS    COME."  —  Isaidh  Ixiii.  4. 

REAT.  events  are  sometimes  ushered  into  being 
with  thunders  and  earthquakings  ;  sometimes  with 
the  still  small  voice  unheard  of  men.  It  is  true 
that  the  kingdom  of  God  cometh  not  with  obser- 
vation ;  yet  in  some  of  the  chief  movements  of  that  kingdom 
to  its  ultimate  and  universal  sovereignty,  there  is  the  utmost 
observation,  and  its  final  consummation  will  be  accompanied 
with  inconceivable  pomp  and  glory.  Both  of  these  modes 
of  manifestation  have  been  connected  with  the  coming  of 
the  kingdom  of  God  in  the  work  of  emancipation  in  America. 
The  message  which  but  yesterday  flew  through  all  the 
land,  and  is  already  leaping  over  all  seas,  is  one  of  the  great 
epochs  of  that  divine  movement.  The  rising  waves  of  lib- 
erty lap  the  throne  of  national  sovereignty.  He  who  but  a 
year  ago,  in  most  careful  terms,  promised  the  protection  of 
the  national  arm  to  the  Satanic  institution,  now  declares 
that  it  must  gather  up  its  feet  to  die. 

We   may  well  exult  over  such  a  proclamation.     It  will 
cause  rejoicings  in  the  hut  of  the  slave,  in  the  palaces  of 

*  A   sermon  preached  in   the   Clinton   Street   Methodist  Episcopal 
Church,  Newark,  N.  J.,  Sunday,  March  9,  18G2.     See  Note  X. 

(269) 


270  THE   DAY   DAWNS. 

the  princes,  in  the  courts  of  heaven.  If  one  could  res- 
cue a  brute  creature  from  the  pit  on  the  Sabbath  day,  and 
rejoice  over  its  deliverance,  much  more  can  we  over  the  fast 
speeding  salvation  of  these  children  of  our  common  Father, 
brothers  and  sisters  of  our  common  Savior,  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ. 

I.  Let  us  notice  the  prominent  steps  in  the  eventful  his- 
tory of  this  great  reformation. 

It  started  without  observation. 

Thirty  years  ago  the  whole  nation  lay  dead  and  buried 
in  the  grave  of  slavery.  The  long  struggle  of  the  fathers 
had  not  prevailed  against  the  evil.  Jefferson  had  written 
against  it ;  Washington  had  labored  to  abolish  it ;  Franklin, 
the  President  of  the  first  Abolition  Society  in  America,  and 
in  the  world,  and  the  first  petitioner  to  Congress,  the  first 
to  any  legislative  body  for  the  abolition  of  slavery,  had  died 
an  abolitionist,  but  with  his  desire  unaccomplished.  The 
Presbyterian  Church,  after  passing  strong  resolutions  against 
the  sin,  had  gone  to  sleep  in  its  arms.  The  Methodist 
Church,  after  having  labored,  through  such  great  foes  of 
slavery  as  Wesley,  and  Coke,  and  Asbury,  to  extirpate  it 
from  her  fold  and  from  the  land,  after  having  emancipated 
forty  thousand  bondmen  in  Maryland  had  given  over  the 
effort,  and  was  in  the  complete  control  of  the  slaveholding, 
slave-trading  ministers  and  members  of  the  Gulf  States. 
Statesmen,  having  vainly  struggled  to  keep  the  hydra-headed 
Bai'barism  from  crossing  the  Mississippi,  had  yielded  Arkan- 
sas and  Missouri  to  its  sway,  and  retired,  weary  and  dis- 
heartened, from  the  great  conflict,  and  were  busy  in  the 
little  and  forgotten  rivalries  of  the  hour.  Massachusetts, 
Pennsylvania,  Connecticut,  New  York,  New  Jersey,  New 
Hampshire,  Vermont,  and  Rhode  Island  had  abolished  it  in 
their  limits,  not  by  selling  its  victims  South,  as  some  of 
their  own  children  ignorantly  or  irreverently  affirm,  but  by 
liberating  them  on  the  spot,  and  from  motives  of  conscience 


FIRST   ABOLITION   PROCLAMATION.  271 

alone.  But  the  great  movement  had  paused  in  its  march. 
An  imaginary  line  was  the  nominal  barrier;  the  mighty  power 
of  the  Iniquity  was  the  real  barrier.  The  broad  waves  of 
freedom  that  had  rolled  to  Mason  and  Dixon's  line  had  been 
stayed,  and  a  reflex  tide  of  paralysis,  of  compromise,  of 
complicity,  set  back  upon  us  from  that  sea  of  death.  All 
parties,  all  seats,  all  persons  were  submerged  in  its  waves. 
The  Samson  of  Liberty  lay  bound  and  shorn,  and  sleeping 
in  the  lap  of  the  Delilah  of  Slavery.  Then  came  there  forth 
from  an  unknown  quarter,  in  the  city  of  Boston,  a  solitary 
beam  of  light,  kindled  from  the  embers  of  the  abolitionism 
of  the  fathers,  deep  covered  though  they  were  with  the 
cold  ashes  of  silence  and  servility. 

"  It  smote  the  dark  with  uncongenial  ray." 

A  few  souls  saw  the  light  and  followed  it,  as  the  wise 
men  did  the  star,  unseen  of  the  worldly  and  the  wicked.  It 
led  them  to  a  small  upper  room,  where,  among  his  scanty 
types,  sat  a  young  Quaker,  who  had  lately  been  driven  out 
of  Baltimore,  and  who  was  weekly  proclaiming  through  his 
little  sheet  the  duty  of  immediate  and  unconditional  eman- 
cipation—  the  very  duty  which  Asbury  and  Garretson,  and 
the  Methodists  of  Baltimore,  had  proclaimed  in  that  city 
forty  years  before.  The  darkness  soon  felt  the  light,  and 
rose  and  raged  around  him.  Ere  many  days,  the  men  of 
wealth  and  standing  of  that  city  broke  into  a  female  prayer 
meeting,  seized  this  brave  and  truth-telling  young  man, 
dragged  him  by  a  rope  through,  the  streets,  with  a  mob 
howling  for  his  life.  He  was  rescued  from  destruction  only 
by  the  strong  arm  of  municipal  authority,  and  the  strong 
walls  of  a  dungeon.  From  that  hour  to  this,  now  in  ob- 
scurity, now  in  the  sight  of  all  men,  this  Kingdom  of  God 
has  been  advancing.  It  brought  men  one  by  one  into  its 
service.  Then  single  churches  came,  and  from  solitary 
altars  the  pure  flame  of  the  Shekinah  of  God's  universal, 


272  THE  DAY  DAWNS. 

impartial,  life-giving  and  liberty-giving  love  shone  forth. 
Then  it  organized  itself  into  associations  and  parties,  had 
internal  conflicts,  as  Peter  and  Pa'ul  had,  and  separations,  as 
Paul  and  Barnabas  had,  and  errors  crept  into  portions  of  it. 
as  into  the  Church  at  Corinth  and  Galatia.  But  it  sloughed 
oif  the  errors,  and  rose  in  increasing  beauty  and  majesty. 
Then  it  gained  the  mastery  over  States,  and  finally  has 
placed  itself  substantially  in  the  supreme  seat  of  authority. 
Meantime  the  counter  elements  were  none  the  less  active. 
They  made  the  rulers  submit  to  them.  The  organized  forces, 
religious  and  secular,  had  taken  no  side,  directly,  with  the 
oppressed,  and  so  were  swept  into  the  grasp  of  the  op- 
pressor. They  declared,  through  a  President,  that  the 
mails,  over  more  than  half  of  our  territory,  should  bear  no 
message  favorable  to  human  freedom.  They  declared, 
through  a  Secretary  of  State,  that  Slavery  was  the  Corner- 
Stone  of  our  Republic,  as  Mr.  Stephens  says  it  is  of  the 
horrible  fiction  of  a  government,  which  that  system,  expelled 
from  national  power,  has  sought  to  extemporize.  They 
seized  upon  the  territory  of  a  weak  neighbor,  with  whom 
we  were  at  peace,  to  give  new  outlets  to  their  accursed 
merchandise  in  the  bodies  and  souls  of  men.  They  passed 
laws,  requiring,  with  threats  of  heavy  fines  and  imprison- 
ments, every  person  in  the  nation,  man  or  woman,  to  aid 
in  stealing  their  brethren,  and  in  reducing  them  to  bondage. 
A  minister  of  the  Gospel  now  lies  in  prison  in  Northern  Ohio, 
one  of  the  freest  sections  of  the  land,  for  refusing  to  commit 
that  crime.  They  abrogated  the  solemn  ordinance  of  our 
fathers  whereby  this  fearful  sin  was  forbidden  to  march 
northward  of  a  parallel  of  latitude,  and  strove  by  every 
means,  presidential,  congressional,  judicial,  military,  and 
mobocratic,  to  push  the  Car  of  Juggernaut  into  the  Free 
Territories,  and  thence  into  the  Free  States.  Only  by  heroic 
sacrifices,  sufferings,  and  death,  was  their  scheme  made  to 
fail.  Our  future  history  will  contain  no  more  honorable 
names  than  the  martyrs  of  Kansas. 


FIRST   ABOLITION   PROCLAMATION.  273 

Those  who  are  expected  to  hold  the  scales  of  justice 
evenly,  and  who  are  especially  required,  by  the  instincts 
of  man  and  the  Word  of  God,  to  defraud  not  the  poor,  nor 
take  money  against  the  innocent,  the  very  fountain  and 
origin  of  national  justice,  our  Supreme  Court,  and  its  su- 
preme head,  had  the  blasphemous  audacity  to  declare  that 
no  person  of  African  descent  could  sue  in  our  courts,  or 
had  any  rights  which  white  men  were  bound  to  respect. 
Though  but  one  out  of  a  million  of  the  drops  of  blood  in  his 
heart  traced  its  origin  to  Africa,  and  so  to  our  common 
fathers,  Noah  and  Adam,  and  all  the  rest  were  of  purest  Cau- 
casian, he  was  prevented  from  appealing  to  the  human  rep- 
resentatives of  divine  justice,  against  any  act  of  injustice, 
no  matter  how  flagrant.  The  seat  of  Righteousness  thus 
became  the  seat  of  Sin.  How  did  the  Divine  voice  ring  in 
their  ears,  "What  mean  ye  that  ye  beat  my  people  to  pieces, 
and  grind  the  faces  of  the  poor  ?  saith  the  Lord." 

The  river  of  death  staid  not  here.  There  remained  one 
thing  more  for  it  to  do.  It  must  nationalize  itself  in  the  legis- 
lation of  the  land.  All  seaports  must  be  open  to  its  cargoes, 
all  roads  to  its  coffles,  all  houses  to  its  victims.  So  a  slave 
code  for  the  Territories  and  slave-trade  in  all  the  States, 
were  demanded,  and,  had  it  not  been  for  the  activity  of  the 
counter  and  Christian  element,  they  would  have  been  en- 
acted ;  and  over  your  railroads,  and  along  your  splendid 
streets,  would  have  been  lashed,  to-day,  the  miserable  droves 
of  human  flesh,  in  and  out  of  our  great  commercial  me- 
tropolis. 

Minor,  but  not  unimportant,  events  attend  this  career  of 
national  subjugation.  Free  speech  and  a  free  press  were 
suppressed  in  the  South.  Xo  party  can  stand  there  on  the 
basis  of  Washington,  Jefferson,  and  George  Mason.  All 
sects,  organizations,  journals,  and  tongues  were  compelled 
to  adore  the  image  the  haughty  dealers  in  human  flesh  set 
up,  and  whosoever  fell  not  down  and  worshiped,  that  same 
18 


274  THE   DAY  DAWNS. 

hour  was  cast  into  the  midst  of  a  burning  fiery  furnace. 
All  prostrated  themselves  admiringly  before  this  worse  than 
Babylonish  idol.  A  little  company  of  men,  of  the  faith  and 
courage  of  the  Hebrew  children,  not  only  refused  to  bow 
down,  but  sought  to  snatch  from  the  bloody  jaws  of  the 
Moloch  the  poor  victims  he  was  daily  devouring;  and  those 
who  tenderly  nursed  the  living  idol  with  human  flesh,  caught 
the  brave  successors  of  those  brave  Hebrews,  and  hanged 
them  on  a  tree. 

Athens  for  centuries  remembered,  with  annual  festivities 
and  ceaseless  gratitude,  the  courage  of  Theseus,  son  of  her 
king.  To  her  children  and  her  children's  children,  for  many 
generations,  she  told  the  tale,  how  the  Cretan  pirates,  having 
ravaged  her  coasts,  would  grant  her  existence  only  on  con- 
dition that  she  annually  sent  fourteen  of  her  choicest  youth, 
seven  of  her  finest  young  men,  seven  of  her  fairest  maidens, 
who  should  be  offered  to  the  Minotaur,  a  man-bull,  that  was 
begotten  in  horrid  lust,  and  kept  alive  by  the  more  horrid 
sustenance  of  human  blood.  And  they  loved  to  tell,  how 
once,  as  the  vessel  bearing  this  dreadful  burden  sailed  out 
of  the  harbor,  as  many  vessels  have  since  sailed  from  Nor- 
folk, Charleston,  Savannah,  and  Mobile,  with  black  sails, 
and  full  of  lamentations  and  weeping,  while  parents,  com- 
panions, or  children  stood  on  the  shore  overwhelmed  with 
terrible  distress,  Theseus  went  with  them,  and  with  brave 
hands  slew  the  boy-eating  and  girl-eating  monster,  and 
brought  his  kindred  home.  A  greater  than  Theseus  was 
Captain  Brown  ;  and  though  he  felt  in  his  effort  to  extricate 
his  brethren  and  sisters  from  the  cruel  jaws  of  this  worse 
than  the  Minotaur,  begotten,  as  that,  in  lust,  and  kept  alive, 
as  that  was,  by  the  living  agonies  of  myriads  of  human  souls, 
still  his  soul  is  marching  on.  Two  years  have  not  yet 
elapsed  since  the  last  two  of  his  friends  mounted  the  honor- 
able scaffold,  whose  remains  this  consecrated  soil  of  New 
Jersey  tenderly  and  joyfully  embraces;  and  before  that  short 


FIRST  ABOLITION  PROCLAMATION.  275 

time  had  passed,  scores  of  thousands  of  men,  singing  praises 
for  his  courage  and  conduct,  march  by  the  spot  where  he 
was  captured,  along  the  road  up  which  he  was  taken,  man- 
gled and  faint,  for  a  Pilate  trial,  by  the  jail  where  they 
chained  him,  the  court-house  where  they  mocked  him,  and  the 
hill  where  they  slew  him.  To-day  citizens  of  Massachusetts 
occupy  the  hall  where  he  was  found  guilty  of  insurrection, 
and  treason,  and  murder  ;  and  the  lawyer  who  acted  for  the 
State,  the  judge  who  represented  its  injustice,  the  governor, 
who,  so  far  from  washing  his  hands  of  his  blood,  washed 
them  in  it,  even  the  State  itself,  whose  wicked  impulses 
these  wicked  men  but  feebly  expressed,  are  in  a  condition 
of  avowed  insurrection,  treason,  and  murder.  She  is  being 
tried,  condemned,  and  executed  by  the  mighty  armies  of 
freedom  moving  over  her  soil,  under  the  inspiration  of  the 
people  who  have  sent  them  forth,  and  led  by  the  Lord  of 
Hosts,  who  mustereth  his  hosts  to  battle.  Surely,  never  was 
a  false  accusation  so  swiftly  hurled  back  upon  those  that 
uttered  it.  Never  did  He  who  says  "  Vengeance  is  mine,  I 
will  repay,"  so  vividly  and  so  rapidly  commend  to  the  lips 
of  His  enemies  the  cup  they  had  forced  down  the  throat  of 
His  servants.  Insurrection,  murder,  and  treason  are  written 
with  the  blazing  finger  of  His  justice  on  all,  from  the  lowest 
servant  to  the  State  itself,  who  has  dared  to  slay  those  who 
only  sought  peacefully  to  execute  righteousness  ;  who  only 
remembered  those  in  bonds  as  bound  with  them. 

The  slave  power  has  thus,  in  every  minor,  major,  and 
maximum  form  of  iniquity,  sought  to  throttle  Democracy, 
Liberty,  and  Religion,  in  our  land ;  and,  finally,  infuriated 
by  the  human  blood  it  had  di-ank,  as  such  draughts  are  said 
to  enrage  those  who  physically  drain  them,  it  sprang  at 
the  government  itself,  and  expected  to  have  sat  long  ere 
this  on  the  throne  of  national  and  undisputed  sovereignty. 
Then  comes  a  winter  of  discontent,  a  time  of  darkness,  of 
helplessness,  of  despair  ;  then  the  open  revolt  of  States,  and 


276  THE   DAY  DAWNS. 

of  officials  of  every  grade  ;  then  the  seizure  of  forts  and 
munitions  of  war ;  then  the  assault  on  a  helpless  and  starv- 
ing garrison  ;  then  the  marshaling  of  arms,  and  battle's 
magnificently  stern  array.  Defeats  rapidly  multiply,  and  an 
hour  of  thick  gloom  rests  down  upon  the  people,  and  the 
war  seems  long,  dubious,  and  almost  hopeless  ;  when,  lo  ! 
one  Sunday  morning,  Mill  Springs  is  wet  with  the  sacred 
blood  of  martyrs  in  this  holy  cause  of  nationality  and  liberty ; 
but  the  blood  of  traitors  flows  more  profusely,  and  the  tide 
of  defeat  is  turned.  Fort  Henry  falls ;  Fort  Donelson,  the 
Western  Thermopylae,  yields  to  the  advancing  forces  of  no 
Asiatic  tyrant,  but  of  democratic  equality  and  liberty,  and 
Bowling  Green,  Columbus,  and  Nashville  are  bloodlessly 
ours.  The  West  seemed  to  be  securing  all  the  glories  of 
the  conflict,  when  a  word  from  the  banks  of  the  Potomac, 
written  by  the  commander-in-chief  of  our  armies,  the  ap- 
pointed head  of  the  people,  announces  to  the  world  a  greater 
victory  than  any  won  on  fields  of  blood,  fraught  with  grander 
consequences,  and  sure  of  a  higher  renown. 

We  have  thus  led  you  through  this  very  brief  rSsumS  of 
events,  from  the  first  blast  of  the  trumpet  of  Freedom  from  the 
lips  of  a  then  obscure  young  Quaker  printer,  thirty  years  ago, 
to  the  last,  which  has  just  been  sounded  out  from  the  Presi- 
dential mansion,  foretelling  the  death  of  the  monster,  against 
which  the  youthful  David  then  went  out  to  battle.  William 
Lloyd  Garrison  and  Abraham  Lincoln  will  stand  together  in 
our  history.  They  are  the  ministers  of  God  —  the  one  the 
forerunner  of  the  Divine  Liberator,  and  the  other  the  Chief 
of  the  Apostles,  who  establishes  the  liberty  for  which  his 
predecessor  had  prepared  the  way. 

II.  Let  us  consider  some  of  the  fruits  of  this  Message, 
which  has  been  well  declared  to  be  the  most  important  word 
spoken  in  this  land  since  the  Declaration  of  Independence. 

First,  it  will  give  clearness  and  tone  to  the  national  mind 
as  to  the  character  of  slavery.  That  mind  has  been  exceed- 


FIRST   ABOLITION   PROCLAMATION.  277 

ingly  beclouded  and  debased  by  the  presence  and  power  of 
this  sin.  This  debasement  has  not  been  confined  to  the  region 
where  it  especially  dwells.  Even  in  the  Free  States  are 
still  found  those  who  have  thought  any  \vords  hostile  to  the 
institution  harsh  and  fanatical.  Though  such  words  have 
only  embodied  the  sentiment  of  the  Church  in  all  ages,  from 
Moses  to  Wesley,  though  they  are  spoken  in  a  community 
whose  fathers,  from  conscientious  and  religious  motives,  abol- 
ished slavery,  still,  so  fearfully  have  we  been  poisoned  with 
this  malaria,  that  any  strong  and  bracing  word  of  truth 
seemed  deadly  and  dangerous. 

Hawthorne  tells  a  story  of  an  Italian  physician  who  trained 
himself  so  that  he  could  live  a  sickly  life  in  a  garden  full  of 
poisonous  plants,  whose  effluence  was  fatal  to  all  others.  If 
another  approached  the  inclosure,  he  dropped  dead.  But  the 
former  breathed  freely  in  its  poisonous  air.  Mithridates, 
to  avoid  death  by  poison,  by  constant  habit  was  enabled  to 
eat  harmlessly  all  manner  of  deadly  and  forbidden  fruit.  As 
a  nation,  we  have  walked  in  a  garden  of  death ;  we  have 
lived  on  the  fruit  of  the  tree  of  death.  In  our  insane  lust 
of  wealth  and  power,  in  our  more  insane  fear  of  the  slave- 
master  and  abhorrence  of  the  slave,  we  have  cried,  — 

"  Give  me  agates  for  my  meat; 
Give  me  cantharides  to  eat; 
From  all  natures,  sharp  and  slimy, 
Salt  and  basalt,  wild  and  tame ; 
Tree  of  lichen,  ape,  sea-lion, 
Bird  and  reptile,  be  my  game ; 
Ivy  for  my  fillet-band, 
Blinding  dog-wood  in  my  hand. 
Hemlock  for  my  sherbet  cull  me, 
And  the  prussic  juice  to  lull  me. 
Swing  me  in  the  Upas  boughs, 
Vampire-fanned,  when  I  carouse." 

No  wonder  that  other  nations  looked  on  with  amazement. 
No  wonder  that  coming  here  they  were  stifled  in  the  fatal 


278  THE   DAY   DAWNS. 

air.  No  wonder  that  the  nation,  at  last,  dropped,  faint  and 
dying,  amid  the  miasma.  Last  winter,  who  believed,  here 
or  abroad,  that  we  were  a  nation  ?  This  Presidential  voice 
will  clear  the  air.  Slavery  may  a  little  longer 

"  from  her  horrid  hair 
Shake  pestilence  and  war," 

but  only  against  our  earnest  efforts  for  its  extinction.  The 
"rights  of  mankind,"  which  our  fathers  died  to  secure, 
which  are  the  proudest  words  on  the  memorial  stone  of  Lex- 
ington, the  proudest  words  in  our  Declaration, — these  funda- 
mental rights  shall  no  longer  be  bartered  away  for  aristocratic 
and  tyrannic  distinctions,  based  on  the  accidents  of  color 
and  descent.  Our  fathers  broke  the  chain  that  bound  the 
poor  white  laboring  man  to  his  master ;  we  shall  break  the 
heavier  chain  that  hangs  upon  the  neck  of  the  poor  laborer 
whose  skin  is  sometimes  a  little  more  discolored  than  our 
own.  We  shall  fall  back  on  first  principles.  We  shall  say 
with  Burns,  — 

"  That  man  to  man  shall  brother  be 
The  whole  world  o'er." 

We  shall  feel  as  Jefferson  did  when  he  wrote,  "  ALL  MEN 
are  created  equal."  We  shall  confess  with  Paul  that  God 
has  made  of  one  blood  all  nations  of  men  for  to  dwell  on  the 
face  of  the  earth.  We  shall  say  as  Christ  taught  us  and  all 
mankind, '"  OUR  Father  who  art  in  heaven,"  and  feel  as  He 
taught  us  to  feel  —  that  our  neighbor  is  he  whom  we  most 
unrighteously  loathe  and  despise  ;  and  only  by  treating  him 
as  our  equal  and  our  brother,  can  we  be  the  children  of  our 
Father,,  or  the  brethren  of  our  Savior. 

The  word  of  authority  was  needed  ;  a  word  from  a  high, 
from  the  highest  place.  Such  a  word  is  this.  When  heavy 
and  pestilential  airs  cover  the  low  places  of  the  earth,  only 
the  winds  that  sweep  from  mountain  summits  can  displace 
them.  So  does  this  word  dispel  the  heavy  fog  that  filled 


FIRST   ABOLITION   PROCLAMATION.  279 

many  a  heart  with  unnatural,  with  unchristian  fear  and  hate. 
I  stood  one  August  morning  on  the  summit  of  Mount  Wash- 
ington. All  the  valleys  below  were  pressed  down  with 
clouds  of  vapor  a  mile  thick.  One  could  not  see  a  score 
of  feet  beneath  the  peak.  The  winds  raged,  and  great  moun- 
tains of  watery  air,  as  huge,  and  seemingly  as  solid,  as  the 
hills  they  covered,  moved  over  the  face  of  the  motionless 
ocean  as  icebergs  over  a  waveless  sea.  But  the  instant 
that  the  sun  arose,  and  fixed  his  eye  on  this  mighty  deep, 
the  thick,  oppressive  air  cleft  asunder,  the  lowliest  vales, 
with  their  trees  and  shrubs,  and  almost  their  very  grass 
blades,  stood  forth  to  our  view,  defined  and  beautiful  in  the 
lustrous  light.  Upon  those  beneath,  the  sun  undoubtedly 
shot  down  with  equal  suddenness  and  glory.  So  this  dec- 
laration in  favor  of  the  abolishment  of  slavery  pierces  the 
mighty  clouds  of  pride,  and  prejudice,  and  fear,  that  have 
hung  heavily  over  the  nation,  and  every  eye  sees  clearly  the 
great  evil  of  slavery,  and  the  necessity  of  its  extirpation. 

Hitherto  many  had  failed  to  see.  The  convictions,  the  in- 
stincts, in  their  nature  in  favor  of  universal  freedom,  the 
authentic  tales  of  cruelty  which  the  system  produces,  re- 
peated in  thousands  of  instances,  the  political  and  infidel, 
though  professedly  religious,  pretensions  and  progress  of 
the  slave  power,  its  revolt  and  assault  upon  the  government, 
even  civil  war,  distress,  and  death,  in  all  their  horrors,  found 
them  stifled  under  the  blinding  vapor.  This  voice  opens 
every  eye,  uplifts  and  regulates  every  conscience.  No  man 
here,  no  man  elsewhere  in  our  land,  can  again  say,  without 
not  only  knowing,  but  confessing,  that  the  "  truth  is  not  in 
him,"  Slavery  is  right,  is  divine,  is  for  the  best  good  of  the 
African,  though  he  be  an  American  of  ten  generations,  and 
nine  tenths  of  him  be  Caucasian.  No  one  will  wrest  the 
Scriptures  to  its  defense,  or  wrest  democracy  to  its  defense. 
That  mean  and  miserable  work  this  single  word  has  de- 
stroyed forever. 


260  THE    DAY   DAWNS. 

Second.  It  will  hasten  the  downfall  of  the  rebellion.  It 
will  do  this  in,  three  ways.  1.  It  will  make  other  nations 
our  allies,  and  compel  their  governments  to  cease  to  flatter 
the  slavocrats  .with  the  hope  of  foreign  support.  They  have 
lived  on  this  hope.  Mr.  Yancey  pleaded  with  the  ministers 
of  the  British  government  that  our  government  was  as  pro- 
slavery  as  theirs.  The  English  journals  in  their  interest  have 
made  like  charges.  This  message,  followed  by  correspond- 
ent action  on  the  part  of  Congress,  stops  that  argument, 
and,  with  it,  all  possible  hope  of  success  from  abroad.  For 
all  Christian  Europe  hates  slavery ;  God  in  Christ  has  wrought 
that  work  there  perfectly.  Though  defective  in  the  great 
democratic  truth  of  equal  rights,  yet  from  emperor  to  serf 
they  abhor  human  bondage,  and  no  government,  how  much 
soever  it  may  desire  the  disruption  of  this  Union,  is  strong 
enough  to  interfere  in  the  struggle  in  the  phase  it  is  now 
assuming.  The  people  even  of  Spain  and  Austria,  much 
more  of  France  and  England,  would  hurl  from  their  thrones 
a  monarch  who  should  presume  to  fight  for  slavery. 

2.  Again  :  the  word  robs  them  of  support  at  home  by  con- 
ciliating all  classes,  who,  through  desire  or  through  fear, 
seek  to  support  the  government.  The  loyal  slaveholder  sees 
in  his  partial  remuneration  an  advantage  to  him.  For  this 
so-called  property  is  utterly  valueless  now,  and  never  can 
be  marketable  again.  I  was  told,  when  in  Maryland,  of  a 
man  for  whom  two  thousand  four  hundred  dollars  was  paid, 
not  eighteen  months  before.  He  is  worth  to-day  less  than 
a  Confederate  note  of  a  hundred  dollars.  The  disloyal  slave- 
holder may  even  hope  fqr  compensation  under  a  proclamation 
of  amnesty,  or  by  the  acts  of  his  legislature,  which  the  mes- 
sage does  not  propose  to  override.  The  various  classes  of 
the  North  will  also  agree.  The  extreme  abolitionist,  be- 
cause he  clearly  sees  at  this  new  turn  in  the  road,  the  depot 
which  he  has  so  long  toiled  to  reach  ;  the  anti-abolitionist, 
if  any  such  still  exist,  because  it  advises  compensation,  and 


FIRST   ABOLITION   PROCLAMATION.  281 

suggests  the  possibility  of  delay  in  the  full  execution  of  the 
work,  and  respects  the  verbal  distinctions  they  cleave  to, 
though  they  no  longer  really  exist.  The  men  of  peace  will 
approve  it,  because  it  makes  for  peace ;  the  men  of  war, 
because  they  desire  war  only  to  break  down  the  rebellion, 
and  that  step  is  soonest  reached  by  such  a  measure.  The 
great  support,  therefore,  which  the  rebel  cause  has  received 
from  these  varied  and  conflicting  sources  will  cease,  and  with 
it  much  of  their  hold  on  power. 

3.  But  a  third  and  not  unimportant  reason  why  this  will 
hasten  the  overthrow  of  the  rebellion  is,  because  of  its 
effect  on  the  slaves.  Hitherto  they  could  only  see  by  faith 
that  the  war  would  work  out  their  liberation.  Now  sight 
confirms  faith.  The  tidings  of  this  message  will  go  by  the 
underground  telegraph  to  every  slave  cabin.  Thousands 
this  day  have  lifted  up  their  heads  in  joy,  for  they  see  that 
their  redemption  draws  nigh.  They  are  not  ignorant  of  the 
movements  about  them.  When  I  entered  Annapolis,  with 
the  first  regiments  that  hastened  to  the  rescue  of  the  capital 
last  April,  I  found  the  slave  already  aware  of  the  real  cause 
of  our  coming.  They  alone  of  all  the  people  came  out  of 
their  cabins  on  the  road,  and  saluted  the  soldiers.  At  Wash- 
ington I  asked  an  old  colored  man  if  he  knew  what  all  this 
meant.  "  0,  yes,"  said  he,  "  it  is  for  liberty."  "  Liberty 
for  whom  ?  "  "  To  the  white  and  the  black,"  he  replied. 
At  a  slaveholder's  mansion,  near  Annapolis  Junction,  where 
we  stopped  for  supper,  the  slaves,  who  were  gathered  near 
the  barns,  received  us  with  smiles  and  cordial  welcomes, 
and  when  we  shouted  for  Union  and  Liberty,  they  respond- 
ed with  enthusiastic  applause.  While  at  the  Eelay,  I  heard 
a  soldier  of  this  regiment  say  to  a  colored  man  of  Balti- 
more, "You  also  attacked  us."  "It  is  false!"  he  instantly 
answered,  forgetting  all  about  his  skin,  and  his  "  natural  in- 
feriority ;  "  "not  a  colored  man  in  Baltimore  touched  you. 
We  knew  what  you  were  coming  for.  Five  thousand  of 


282  THE   DAY  DAWNS. 

us  would  have  defended  you  had  we  had  arms."  Like  tes- 
timonies abound.  This  message  will  confirm  their  hopes. 
They  see  their  prayers  are  being  answered. 

The  year  of  God's  redeemed  is  come.  They  could  not 
rise,  if  they  would,  while  every  white  man  is  especially  armed 
and  watchful.  They  will  not  now,  as  Freedom  dawns  peace- 
fully upon  them.  But  the  power  of  their  tyrants  will  be 
broken  by  these  new  hopes  implanted  in  their  victims,  and 
they  will  hasten  to  make  their  peace  with  the  government, 
and  with  those  whom  they  have  so  brutally  treated  and  de- 
spised. Thus  will  this  word  bring  to  a  speedier  close  the 
already  waning  power  of  the  rebellion. 

4.  But  another  great  blessing  which  it  foretells  is  the 
unification  of  the  Republic.  We  have  never  been,  in  reality, 
one  people.  Blood  has  not  separated  us ;  for  the  French 
of  Indiana  and  Illinois  have  coalesced  with  the  English  of 
Massachusetts  ;  the  Dutch  of  New  York  with  the  Irish  of 
New  Hampshire.  Later  immigrations  flow  into  the  ancient 
ones,  and  into  each  other,  easily,  spontaneously.  Natural 
boundaries  have  not  separated  us.  New  Jersey  is  separated 
from  Pennsylvania  by  more  natural  boundaries  than  Penn- 
sylvania is  from  Maryland.  Iowa  and  Maine  are  closer 
together  than  Ohio  and  Kentucky.  There  has  been  only 
one  distinction,  and  that  was  slavery.  Slavery,  a  peculiar 
institution,  makes  its  supporters  a  peculiar  people,  though 
not  the  people  of  God. 

"  The  Baltimore  Christian  Advocate,"  but  a  year  ago, 
dwelt  on  the  identity  of  the  Southerners  and  their  disparta- 
tion  from  the  North  in  thought,  life,  and  religion.  They 
were  excluded  from  the  civilized  world  for  their  leprosy,  and 
sought  to  make  their  infamy  an  honor.  This  was  so  at  the 
beginning.  John  Adams  calls  them,  in  his  day,  the  "Barons 
of  the  South."  South  Carolina  and  Georgia  assumed  the 
airs  of  aristocracy  even  thus  early.  The  patents  of  this 
nobility  have  been  vastly  increased  since  that  time,  and 


FIRST   ABOLITION   PROCLAMATION.  283 

their  pride  proportionally.  We  can  never  be  one  people, 
truly  and  perfectly,  till  slavery  is  abolished.  Some  of  our 
citizens,  of  little  money  and  less  brains,  foolishly  suppose 
the  Middle  States  more  like  the  South  than  they  are  like 
New  England  ;  and  others,  more  foolish,  rejoice  over  this 
fancied  resemblance.  The  truth  is,  that  all  the  Free  States 
are  substantially  identical.  For  they  are  alike  in  the  great 
fundamental  idea  of  free  labor,  of  the  dignity  of  labor,  of 
the  rights  of  labor.  They  are  distinguished  among  them- 
selves by  grades  of  development  of  intellect,  enterprise,  and 
morality  ;  yet  they  are  fundamentally  one.  Hence,  you  can 
elect  a  mechanic  to  represent  you  in  Congress,  a  mechanic 
to  represent  your  State  in  the  Senate,  a  mechanic  for  your 
mayor.*  Hence  you  see  the  strong  arm  of  a  laborer,  carved 
in  stone,  on  the  front  of  one  of  your  costliest  buildings,  and 
the  sign  of  a  banking  institution,  too,  that  represents  prima- 
rily capital,  and  not  labor.  These  sights  are  not  seen  south 
of  Mason  and  Dixon's  line.  All  the  Slave  States  are  alike 
in  despising  labor.  There,  the  holder,  breeder,  seller,  of 
human  beings,  —  he  is  the  great  man  ;  the  mechanic  is  the 
slave.  Bishop  Polk  owns  his  farmers,  blacksmiths,  carpen- 
ters, masons,  tailors,  milliners,  dress-makers,  and  cooks. 
What  he  does  not  want  of  these  laborers  he  sells,  as  we 
do  our  cattle  and  horses,  if  we  have  more  than  are  necessary 
for  carrying  on  our  farms. 

I  talked  with  a  slave  at  Annapolis  Junction,  who  said  he 
carried  on  two  farms  for  his  owner,  and  never  had  a  dollar 
for  his  sagacious  and  constant  oversight.  The  tea  and  su- 
gar on  his  cabin  table,  his  wife,  a  free  woman,  bought  with 
her  labor.  Is  there  a  man  capable  of  carrying  on  two  farms 
for  a  Northern  gentleman,  thus  paid  ?  Is  not  such  a  super- 
intendent always  a  respectable,  often  a  leading,  and  even  a 
comparatively  wealthy  member  of  the  community  ?  Such 

*  Such  was  the  case  at  that  time  in  Newark  and  New  Jersey.  Every 
one  of  these  offices  was  filled  by  a  mechanic. 


284  THE   DAY   DAWNS. 

is  the  universal  state  of  affairs  there.  This  must  be  changed. 
The  great  word  of  the  Sixth  of  March  initiates  the  reform. 
Free  institutions  and  free  labor  will  move  southward.  Man 
will  be  treated  as  man,  woman  as  woman.  A  fair  day's 
wages  for  a  fair  day's  work,  will  be  the  motto  there  as  here. 
Politics  will  conform  to  it.  Said  a  friend  of  mine,  a  pay- 
master in  the  army,  to  a  Maryland  machinist,  "  Why  don't 
you  get  up  a  workingman's  candidate  for  Congress,  instead 
of  taking  one  of  these  slaveholding  aristocrats  ? "  The  idea 
struck  him  as  preposterous.  Such  an  attempt  would  be 
laughed  to  scorn.  But  when  slavery  is  suppressed,  this 
universal  custom  of  the  North  will  obtain  there. 

So  will  the  religion  of  the  North  move  southward.  They 
have  a  religion  of  their  own.  In  it  no  stranger  can  meddle. 
An  Episcopalian  may  be  high  church  or  low  church  here  and 
in  England.  In  the  South  a  new  Article,  not  written  in  the 
Book  of  Common  Prayer,  is  introduced,  which  outvalues 
all  that  are  inscribed  there.  You  must  say,  "  I  believe  in 
Slavery,"  or  all  the  Apostles'  Creed  goes  for  nothing.  If 
you  say  that,  you  are  still  Orthodox,  although  a  heretic  as 
to  all  the  rest  of  the  creed.  So  is  it  with  Presbyterianism. 
You  can  go  from  Geneva,  through  Scotland,  to  Philadelphia, 
and  be  an  accepted  Presbyterian.  Cross  the  unseen  line 
and  all  your  theology  is  changed  to  one  dogma,  arid  that  a 
doctrine  of  devils.  So  the  Methodists  drop  Wesley  and  As- 
bury,  and  follow  diabolic  fables  that  have  not  the  merit  of 
being  even  cunningly  devised.  Anti-slavery,  inherited  from 
their  fathers,  still  lives  in  a  part  of  the  border.  But  it  is 
like  the  shoal  edge  of  the  ocean,  barren  sand,  always  wet, 
often  under  water,  and  never  harvestable,  while  it  rapidly 
slopes  down  into  the  unfathomable  gulf  beyond,  of  abomi- 
nable doctrines,  and  hardly  more  abominable  practices. 

This  region  must  be  regenerated.  The  waves  of  liber- 
ty, a  Nile  of  wealth,  must  fertilize  this  American  Sahara. 
Churches,  schools,  workshops  and  farms,  must  be  filled  with 


FIRST   ABOLITION   PROCLAMATION.  285 

free  worshipers,  students,  toilers.  A  vast  country  remains 
to  be  subdued  —  the  richest  and  most  beautiful  in  America. 
It  is  trodden  under  foot  of  the  Gentiles.  The  voice  of  those 
who  are  defrauded  of  their  wages  cries  to  God,  and  He  has 
come  down  to  see  if  it  be  according  to  their  cry.  He  finds 
they  told  the  truth.  Therefore  will  He  destroy  those  hus- 
bandmen, and  give  that  vineyard  to  others  ?  Their  enslaved 
neighbors  shall  till  their  own  fields  in  freedom  and  happiness. 
Their  poor  white  neighbors,  now  more  despised  than  their 
slaves,  will  rise  in  intelligence,  virtue,  competence,  and  pow- 
er. The  great  emigration  of  Europe  and  the  North  will 
pour  over  the  wilderness,  and  it  shall  blossom  as  the  rose. 
It  shall  blossom  abundantly,  and  rejoice  even  with  joy  and 
singing.  The  glory  of  Lebanon  shall  be  given  unto  it,  the 
excellency  of  Carmel  and  Sharon.  The  victims  of  this  ter- 
rific cruelty  will  at  last  be  free,  prosperous,  and  happy. 
The  husband  and  wife,  the  babes  and  their  mother,  will 
dwell  in  peaceful  and  blessed  communion.  No  more  scour- 
ging lash,  no  more  lordly  lust,  no  more  riven  hearts,  no  more 
ignorance,  idleness,  or  misery.  No  more  such  sights  will 
be  seen  as  would  have  made  the  Savior  weep  more  bitterly 
than  he  did  over  Jerusalem.  A  colored  man  in  Baltimore, 
now  free,  told  me  that  he  once  received  three  hundred  lashes 
for  unintentional  delay  in  attending  to  a  tobacco  field  on 
Sunday.  A  member  of  the  Baltimore  Conference,  a  Virgin- 
ian by  birth,  and  an  ardent  abolitionist,  told  me  that  he  knew 
a  Baptist  deacon,  in  the  Shenandoah  Valley,  who  carried  the 
scalp  of  a  slave  at  his  saddle-bow,  and  a  Presbyterian  elder, 
who  had  taken  off  the  skin  of  a  slave,  tanned  it,  covered 
his  saddle  with  it,  and  rode  upon  it.  Nat  Turner's  skin 
was  cut  up  into  relics,  which  ladies  proudly  carried  ;  and 
John  Brown's  son  stands  in  the  Medical  College  of  Win- 
chester, a  proof  of  the  worse  than  Indian  brutality  of  South- 
ern gentlemen,  nay,  rather  of  Southern  fiends.  For  they  are 
not  even  men  that  can  commit  such  barbarities. 


286  THE   DAY  DAWNS. 

These  barbarities  shall  come  to  a  perpetual  end  with  the 
monslrum  Iwrrendum  out  of  whose  loins  they  have  sprung. 
Some,  in  the  last  resort  of  unbelief,  have  asked  wildly,  "  What 
are  you  going  to  do  with  these  freedmen  ?  "  We  answer, 
"  Let  them  alone." 

They  will  work ;  they  will  sell  the  produce  of  their  farms  ; 
they  are  the  most  intelligent,  they  are  almost  the  only  intelli- 
gent, farmers  of  the  South.  They  will  be  no  burden  to  the 
government.  Let  their  friends  do  as  they  are  now  doing. 
Let  teachers  and  guides  go  forth  as  that  ship-load  went  last 
week.*  That  was  an  event  not  second  to  this  message.  A 
new  civilization  went  to  South  Carolina  with  them,  and 
its  results  will  speedily  prove  their  fitness  for  freedom,  to 
the  overwhelming  of  our  mean  and  wicked  prejudice,  with 
shame  and  everlasting  contempt.  It  may  even  be  shown 
that  the  superior  race  is  the  enslaved  race  ;  that  as  it  was 
in  Egypt,  in  Babylon,  in  Rome,  so  is  it  in  the  South.  As 
from  this  class  came,  anciently,  generals,  scholars,  poets, 
emperors,  and  statesmen,  so  may  they  yet,  from  this  de- 
spised and  down-trodden  people.  We  may  loathe  this  word, 
and  him  that  declares  it,  as  the  Jews  did  Paul,  when  he 
asserted  the  equality  of  the  Gentiles  with  themselves  ;  but 
we  cannot  gainsay  or  deny  it.  They  are  of  our  blood,  of 
the  blood  of  Adam,  of  Noah,  of  Christ.  They  will  prove 

*  The  first  vessel  that  carried  out  men  and  women  for  the  establish- 
ment of  schools  and  churches,  and  the  organization  of  labor  in  the  South, 
was  the  steamer  Atlantic.  She  left  New  York,  March  3,  18G2,  for  Port 
Eoyal,  South  Carolina,  with  about  sixty  persons,  under  the  superintend- 
ence of  Edward  L.  Pierce,  of  Boston,  and  Rev.  Mansfield  French,  of 
New  York.  Among  them  were  fourteen  ladies.  She  carried  farming 
utensils,  seeds,  sewing  machines,  books,  clothing,  etc.  All  who  joined 
the  company  took  an  oath  of  allegiance  to  the  Constitution,  and  against 
all  its  enemies.  This  was  the  beginning  of  that  emigration  which  has 
gone  on  so  greatly  since,  and  will  proceed  yet  more  rapidly  under  the 
peaceful  protection  of  the  future  government.  This  "Atlantic"  was 
the  Mayflower  that  assured  a  New  South  after  the  Puritan  and  perfect 
pattern. 


FIRST   ABOLITION   PROCLAMATION.  287 

their  honorable  right  to  it  in  God's  good  time  and  way.  A 
slaveholder's  son  in  Maryland  confessed  to  me  that  he  had 
first  cousins  who  were  slaves,  and  who  were  equally  talented 
with  their  cousins  who  were  free.  The  best  of  Caucasian 
blood  flows  in  their  veins.  They  will  yet  show  that  it  has 
not  degenerated  by  commingling  with  the  equally  excellent, 
if  more  torrid  blood  of  Africa. 

But  in  the  great  uplifting  of  the  Southern  territory,  this 
portion  of  the  population  will  soon  be  lost  sight  of.  Four 
millions,  to  the  score  of  millions  that  will  pour  over  that 
immense  and  beautiful  country,  will  be  less  than  the  few 
thousands  of  them  in  New  York  to  its  myriad  population. 
They  will  be  merged  in  the  great  tides  of  life  that  will  flow, 
freely  and  grandly,  over  all  the  continent. 

5.  There  are  other  and  not  valueless  fruits  of  this  pro- 
phetic word.  If  carried  out,  or  replaced,  as  it  will  be,  by 
more  thorough  measures,*  it  will  restore  the  Republic  to 
its  position  among  the  nations  of  the  earth.  It  will  prevent 
the  absolutizing  of  America  by  putting  offshoots  of  the  effete 
and  discrowned  families  of  Europe  upon  thrones  propped 
on  foreign  spears.  It  will  give  us  full  and  mighty  power 
against  the  monarchical  systems  of  Europe.  It  will  abase 
the  high  heads  that  maintain,  among  men  and  Christians, 
factitious  distinctions  based  on  blood,  not  brains,  on  lineage, 
not  character,  on  rank,  not  worth.  All  these  will  go  down 
before  the  simple,  majestic  effulgence  of  a  perfectly  free  and 
equal  people.  Therefore  let  us  laud  and  magnify  the  name 
of  our  God.  He  has  made  us,  who  were  less  than  a  century 
ago  no  people,  the  people  of  God.  He  brought  a  vine  out  of 
Egypt,  a  vassalized,  rank-ridden,  priest-ridden  Europe,  and 
planted  it  in  this  goodly  land.  The  wild  boar  of  slavery 
has  trodden  it  down  and  mastered  it,  and  now  is  seeking 

*  The  more  thorough  measure  by  which  it  was  replaced  was  the 
Proclamation,  six  months  after,  of  universal  and  unconditional  eman- 
cipation. 


288  THE   DAY   DAWNS. 

to  tear  it  up  by  the  roots.  Our  God  will  not  suffer  it  to  be. 
He  may  chastise  us,  but  He  will  not  destroy.  The  signs 
of  the  times  are  propitious.  The  armies  of  the  aliens  are 
put  to  flight ;  distress  has  seized  hold  upon  them.  They  are 
suffering  the  just  judgment  of  God.  "  They  have  called  evil 
good,  and  good  evil ;  they  have  put  darkness  for  light,  and 
light  for  darkness,  bitter  for  sweet,  and  sweet  for  bitter. 
They  have  justified  the  wicked  for  a  reward,  and  taken  away 
the  righteousness  of  the  righteous  from  him."  Alas,  how 
many  innocent  victims  of  their  passions  lay  this  last  sin  to 
their  charge  !  "Therefore,"  says  God,  "  as  the  fire  devour- 
eth  the  stubble,  and  as  the  flame  consumeth  the  chaff,  so 
their  root  shall  be  as  rottenness,  and  their  blossom  shall  go 
up  as  dust ;  because  they  have  cast  away  the  law  of  the 
Lord  of  Hosts,  and  despised  the  word  of  the  Holy  One  of 
Israel,  therefore  is  the  anger  of  the  Lord  kindled  against 
His  people  ;  He  hath  stretched  forth  His  hand  against  them 
and  hath  smitten  them,  and  their  carcasses  were  torn  in  the 
midst  of  the  streets.  And  in  this  day  He  roars  against 
them  like  the  roaring  of  the  sea  ;  and  if  we  look  unto  their 
land,  behold,  darkness  and  sorrow,  and  the  light  is  darkened 
in  the  heavens  thereof." 

It  may  be  long  ere  this  Presidential  word  shall  be  brought 
to  perfection.  It  may  be  refused  by  the  Pharaoh  hardness 
of  border  slaveholders,  in  order  that  His  strong  arm  may 
give  the  more  speedy  and  more  complete  liberation  which 
he  threatens.  The  struggle  with  the  hoary  and  haughty 
sin  may  be  long,  and  fierce,  and  bloody.  Seven  years  of 
suffering  and  death  passed  before  the  Declaration  became 
the  Deliverance.  We  have  been  partaker  of  their  sins,  and 
the  measure  of  the  judgment  we  have  meted  out  to  our  en- 
slaved brethren  shall  be  measured  to  us  again.  We  must 
suffer  in  our  basket  and  store  ;  we  must  suffer  in  our  hearts, 
in  our  anxiety  for  those  who  go  out  from  us  to  keep  the  foe 
from  ravaging  our  firesides,  in  the  dreadful  griefs  of  wife, 


FIRST   ABOLITION  PROCLAMATION.  289 

and  mother,  and  child,  over  those  who  shall  return  no  more. 
But  yet  we  may  rejoice  that  not  all  the  desolations  of  war, 
nor  even  its  chief  miseries,  are  permitted  by  our  loving  and 
just  God  to  come  upon  us.  We  may  especially  rejoice  that 
His  chastisements  are  leading  us  to  repentance,  that  we  are 
not  only  fasting  before  Him,  but  doing  as  He  requires  ;  pre- 
paring to  "break  every  yoke,  and  let  the  oppressed  go  free." 
Then,  after  due  infliction,  after  the  godly  sorrow  has  wrought 
its  perfect  work,  after  Congress  and  the  legislatures  of  the 
guilty  States  shall  cooperate  in  this  divine  work,  or  the 
President  shall  himself  decree  liberty,  and  shall  with  his 
own  hand  break  the  shackles  from  every  limb,  then,  as  He 
has  promised,  He  will  surely  perform  ;  "  tlien  shall  thy 
light  break  forth  as  the  morning,  and  thine  health  shall 
spring  forth  speedily.  For  thy  righteousness  shall  go  be- 
fore thee,  and  the  glory  of  the  Lord  shall  be  thy  rereward, 
and  I  will  cause  thee  to  ride  upon  the  high  places  of  the 
earth  ;  for  the  mouth  of  the  Lord  hath  spoken  it."  Soon 
will  the  great  Proclamation  be  answered  by  resounding 
praises  from  over  the  sea ;  sooner,  by  more  grateful  and 
more  ringing  hallelujahs  from  our  Southern  shores  ;  and  our 
nation,  delivered  from  its  enemies,  delivered  of  the  sin  which 
has  brought  her  to  the  verge  of  destruction,  shall  resume 
her  place,  shall  ascend  to  a  far  higher  place,  among  the 
nations  of  the  earth.  Her  enemies  at  home,  her  rivals 
abroad,  shall  bend  down  to  the  soles  of  her  feet,  and  all 
the  other  powers  of  earth  shall 

"  perforce 

Sway  to  her  from  their  orbits  as  they  move, 

And  girdle  her  with  music." 

Standing  on  the  cheery  hight  to  which  the  great  words 
of  our  leader  have  lifted  us,  I  have  striven  to  speak,  as  Paul 
did  in  the  storm,  words  of  truth  and  of  encouragement. 
The  Ship  of  State,  the  Ship  Union  and  Liberty,  shall  not  go 
down.  There  shall  be  a  loss,  a  blessed  and  eternal  loss,  of 
19 


290  THE  DAY  DAWNS. 

the  accursed  lading,  but  the  ship  shall  be  saved.  "We  are 
flinging  overboard  that  which  caused  the  storm  ;  we  shall 
soon  be  able  to  sing,  with  our  finest  lyrist :  — 

"  The  good  Ship  Union's  voyage  is  o'er; 

At  anchor  safe  she  swings, 
And  loud  and  clear,  with  cheer  on  cheer, 

Her  joyous  welcome  rings. 
Hurrah  !  hurrah !  it  shakes  the  wave, 

It  thunders  on  the  shore ; 
One  flag,  one  land,  one  heart,  one  hand, 

One  nation  evermore." 


LETTEK    TO    THE    LONDON 
WATCHMAN.* 


ENGLAND   AND    AMERICA. 

To  THE  EDITORS  OF  THE  WATCHMAN  :  — 

AVING  been  lately  permitted  to  make  a  brief  visit 
to  the  land  of  jny  ancestors,  and  to  behold  for 
myself  the  spots  made  memorable  by  past  deeds, 
as  well  as  the  great  centers  of  present  life  and 
duty,  I  unexpectedly  found  all  eyes  turned  away  from  their 
own  things,  historic  or  living,  and  fixed  intently  on  those 
of  America. 

I  could  not  ask  a  peasant  the  way,  or  follow  a  verger  in 
his  tour  of  curiosities,  or  "take  mine  ease  at  mine  inn,"  but 
that,  if  they  learned  that  I  was  an  American,  they  instantly 
plied  me  with  questions  as  to  our  present  and  prospective 
condition.  The  fullness  with  which  our  news  is  detailed, 
the  frequency,  elaborateness,  and  intensity  of  the  leaders  in 
your  journals,  the  articles  in  every  magazine  and  review, 

*  Letter  to  the  London  Watchman,  written  from  Paris,  July  4,  18G2. 
See  Note  XI. 

(291) 


292  LETTER   TO   THE   LONDON   WATCHMAN. 

the  excitement  attending  parliamentary  debates  on  our  mu- 
tual relations,  —  all  show  the  depth  and  fervor  o£  this  feeling. 

The  Times  attempts  to  ridicule  us,  by  saying  that  we  suf- 
fer all  the  extremes  of  intermittent  fever,  as  conflicting  re- 
ports rapidly  succeed  each  other.  It  is  properly  so  ;  for 
we  feel  that  we  are  hanging  over  the  sick  bed  of  an  intensely 
loved  nationality — sick  almost  unto  death;  and  every  symp- 
tom, favorable  or  otherwise,  naturally  excites  us.  We  are 
giving  of  the  fruit  of  our  body  for  the  saving  of  our  nation, 
and  personal  feelings  are  thus  mingled  profoundly  in  the 
struggle.  But  I  see  that  here,  without  any  such  causes, 
almost  as  great  excitement  follows  every  important  event ; 
and  British  nerves  respond  as  keenly  as  American  to  the 
varying  telegrams  that  sweep  over  them. 

I  have  found,  with  this  deep  and  wide-spread  interest, 
two  other  facts,  painful  to  a  lover  of  both  England  and 
America  —  to  a  lover  of  liberty  and  humanity.  They  are 
a  want  of  sympathy  with  the  United  States,  and  an  appar- 
ently intentional  blindness  as  to  the  cause  of  the  rebellion, 
and  the  course  the  government  is  pursuing  against  not  only 
the  revolt,  but  its  primal  and  only  cause.  With  few  and 
most  honorable  exceptions,  the  tone  of  inquiry  lacked  that 
of  sympathy.  It  was  curiosity,  not  love,  that  prompted 
the  querist.  Especially  was  the  ignorance  of  intelligent 
men  of  the  connection  of  slavery  with  the  rebellion,  and  of 
the  movements  of  the  nation  against  that  sin,  most  evident 
and  most  deplorable.  This  last,  I  consider,  arises  from  the 
first ;  for  hostility  or  indifference  of  feeling  will  breed  igno- 
rance. And  yet  the  latter  affects,  if  it  does  not  create,  the 
former. 

Will  you  permit  me  to  attempt  to  remove  this  ignorance 
from  any  of  your  readers  who  may  be  thus  affected  ?  I  am 
certain  that,  if  removed,  the  fountains  of  sympathy  will 
break  forth.  Will  you  allow  me,  therefore,  to  state  in  your 
columns  the  American  cause  as  it  appears  to  Americans.  It 


ENGLAND   AND   AMERICA.  293 

may  possibly  clear  away  from  some  minds  the  clouds  that 
darken  them,  so  that  they  may  see  light  in  the  light  which 
the  providence  of  God  so  powerfully  casts  upon  the  Ameri- 
can people. 

I  do  not  seek  to  defend  America  at  the  English  bar.  I 
solicit  no  favors  for  her  at  its  hands.  She  needs  no  defense. 
She  seeks  no  favors.  She  asks  for  neither  material  aid  nor 
moral  support.  She  had  a  right  to  expect  both.  She  would 
have  received  them  gratefully,  had  they  been,  as  they  ought 
to  have  been,  instantly  and  spontaneously  offered  ;  but  she 
has  never  coveted  them.  Not  that  she  despises  the  judg- 
ment of  others  ;  but  when  that  judgment  conflicts  with  the 
decrees  of  divine  duty,  that  seem  to  her  to  be  almost  audibly 
uttered  from  heaven,  so  clearly,  so  powerfully  do  they  ad- 
dress her,  she  can  say,  with  a  feeling  akin  to  the  Apostle, 
"It  is  .a  small  thing  to  be  judged  of  man's  judgment," 
whether  single,  or  associated  and  nationalized  :  "  He  that 
judgeth  me  is  the  Lord."  A  great  nation  is  not  to  be  tried 
and  condemned  by  many  or  few  hostile  or  friendly  contem- 
poraries. "  God  is  judge  ;  He  putteth  down  one  and  set- 
teth  up  another."  To  Him  Ave  appeal. 

It  is  because  she  is  so  unfairly,  so  criminally,  placed  be- 
fore the  great  reading,  the  still  greater  hearing,  public  of 
England,  by  almost  all  your  influential  journals  and  states- 
men, that  I  ask  the  privilege  of  a  hearing.  It  is  because, 
rather,  of  the  great  interests  of  humanity,  present  and  future, 
that  are  involved  in  this  struggle.  The  position  of  your 
journal — more  appreciative,  and  hence  more  sympathetic, 
than  most  of  your  neighbors  —  leads  me  to  hope  that  my 
words  will  be  given  to  your  readers.  They  shall  be  written 
in  all  fairness  and  kindness  of  feeling,  whatever  plainness 
and  honesty  of  speech  they  may  be  constrained  to  exhibit. 

One  question,  more  than  all  others,  is  asked  by  all  kindty 
or  hostile  Englishmen.  It  is,  "  What  is  the  war  for  ?  " 
They  are  in  as  great  a  state  of  perplexity  as  was  Southey's 


294  LETTER   TO    THE   LONDON   WATCHMAN. 

child  over  Marlborough's  famous  victory.  I  can  appreciate 
the  laureate's  difficulty  in  attempting  to  clear  up  the  mind 
of  his  child.  And,  in  the  fact  that  the  second,  if  not  the 
greatest,  of  England's  generals,  and  the  one  to  whom  she 
gave  her  most  splendid  testimonials,  can  give  no  reasons 
for  his  fighting,  that  the  next  generation  shall  be  able  to 
understand,  I  see  the  folly  of  endeavoring  to  establish  the 
righteousness  of  the  American  cause  on  any  other  than  en- 
during foundations.  The  rebellion  began,  and  has  been 
waged,  solely  in  the  interests  of  Slavery.  There  is  no  need 
of  any  argument  in  America  to  sustain  this.  There  is  no 
man  nor  woman,  North  or  South,  bond  or  free,  white  or 
black,  that  does  not  know  it.  And  yet  the  rebels,  and  their 
allies  of  the  press,  and  of  Parliament,  —  allies,  I  am  sorry 
to  say,  some  of  whom  are  world-famous  abolitionists,  — 
have  had  the  effrontery  to  say  that  Slavery  was  not.  involved 
in  the  struggle  ;  that  other  interests  caused  the  revolt  — 
the  tariff,  or  natural  alienation  of  the  people,  or  oppression 
of  minorities.  This  is  all  chaff.  We  are  one  people,  far 
more  than  England  and  Scotland,  by  marriage,  emigration, 
language,  interest,  and  feeling.  Slavery,  and  slavery  alone, 
has  attempted  our  disruption.  I  beg  you  to  consider  these 
few  facts  as  illustrative  of  this  truth. 

The  slaveholders  demanded,  and  secured,  recognition  in 
the  Constitution.  But  slavery  being  given  up,  from  con- 
scientious motives,  in  the  States  of  one  half  of  the  Union, 
and  being  impoverishing  in  its  nature,  it  was  expected  that 
it  would  soon  cease  everywhere  ;  especially  as  the  foreign 
slave  trade  was  forbidden.  But  England,  through  her  in- 
ventions, becoming  the  great  cotton  manufacturing  nation, 
and  the  slaveholding  States  becoming  the  great  cotton  rais- 
ing region,  slaves  rapidly  rose  in  value,  and  with  this  in- 
crease of  wealth  came  an  increased  importance  to  this  inter- 
est. England's  factories  alone  made  this  system  mighty. 

With  this  prosperity  came  also  another  power,  working 


ENGLAND  AND  AMERICA.  295 

on  the  conscience  of  the  people,  demanding  the  suppression 
of  the  iniquity.  To  this  cry,  we  are  happy  to  say,  England 
contributed.  Had  she  done  so  by  refusing  slave-labor  cot- 
ton, we  should  have  long  since,  and  peaceably,  extirpated 
the  evil.  The  slave  power  demanded  privileges  not  granted 
them  in  the  Constitution.  The  free  sentiment  resisted,  and 
in  many  ways,  and  with  varying  success,  for  twenty-five 
years  the  conflict  has  been  waged.  At  last,  and  for  ten 
years,  not  a  single  point  of  prominent  and  vital  politics  has 
divided  the  nation,  except  as  connected  with  slavery.  In 
1860  the  slaveholders  refused  to  take  Mr.  Douglas  as  their 
candidate,  because  they  knew  that  his  doctrine  of  popular 
sovereignty,  backed  by  the  growing  sentiment  of  the  North, 
would  be,  ultimately,  as  fatal  to  slavery  as  the  positions  of 
the  Republicans.  They  spurned  him,  though  with  him  they 
could,  undoubtedly,  have  retained  their  power,  as  his  popu- 
lar vote  was  over  one  million  three  hundred  thousand,  and 
was  second  only  to  Mr.  Lincoln's.  With  Mr.  Breckinridge's 
vote  he  would  have  had  a  quarter  of  a  million  more  than 
any  other  candidate.  Thus  they  revolted  from  the  Demo- 
cratic party,  and  set  up  as  their  platform  a  slave  code  in 
the  Territories,  and  slave  trade  in  all  the  States  —  that  is, 
the  right  of  free  transit  of  slaves  through  all  the  States,  and 
protection  to  that  property,  as  to  .all  other  property,  in  the 
Territories.  Defeated,  as  they  expected  to  be,  they  revolted 
from  the  government,  as  they  had  intended  and  prepared  to 
do.  Drunk  with  long-continued  success  and  dominion,  they 
despised  the  North  ;  despised  the  party  and  principles  that 
had  legitimately  and  constitutionally  risen  to  power  ;  and 
fancied  that,  affrighted  by  their  warlike  threats  and  prepa- 
rations, and  weakened  by  internal  dissensions,  we  should 
speedily  submit,  and  they  could  return  to  their  seats  of 
supremacy,  or  erect  themselves  into  an  independent  nation, 
without  opposition,  almost  with  the  whining  solicitation  of 
their  foes.  They  never  thought  of  tariff,  of  free  trade,  of 


296  LETTER   TO   *HE   LONDON   WATCHMAN. 

majorities  trampling  on  the  rights  of  minorities,  of  the  nat- 
ural desire  for  different  peoples  to  be  independent  of  each 
other.  These  are  cries  got  up  afterward,  and  for  a  foreign 
market.  At  home  it  was  Slavery,  and  only  Slavery. 

It  seems  unnecessary  to  quote  the  words  of  their  so-called 
"  Vice-President,"  declaring  this  to  be  the  corner-stone  of 
the  new  nation ;  to  refer  to  the  striking  fact,  that  this  class, 
and  this  class  only,  with  their  adherents  and  subjects,  re- 
volted at  the  election  of  a  representative  of  the  opposite 
sentiment,  whose  only  vital  article  was  the  prevention  of 
the  further  growth  of  the  system.  Their  instinct  is  a  suffi- 
cient proof  of  the  truth  of  this  position.  They  knew  that 
if  they  recognized  an  anti-slavery  government,  their  domin- 
ion was  at  an  end.  They  revolted  before  it  was  established. 
They  revolted  only  because  it  was  to  be  established.  They 
acted  wisely,  in  the  light  of  the  wisdom  of  this  world.  Their 
supremacy  was  gone  the  moment  they  bowed  to  the  sover- 
eignty of  the  anti-slavery  sentiment ;  and  an  evil  principle, 
in  man  or  state,  cannot  long  exist  except  as  supreme.  They 
said,  "  We  are  strong  enough  to  set  up  for  ourselves.  We 
will  never  submit  to  a  party  led  by  Messrs.  So  ward,  and 
Chase,  and  Sumner."  So  they  flung  to  the  breeze  the  black 
flag  of  human  bondage,  and  arrayed  their  legions  under  its 
accursed  folds. 

A  simple  illustration  may  set  this  more  clearly  before 
you,  if  it  should  need  additional  light.  Suppose  a  great 
conflict  had  been  raging  in  England  for  thirty  years,  between 
the  principles  of  democracy  and  aristocracy  ;  suppose  that 
after  many  fluctuations  in  Parliament,  and  before  the  people, 
the  democratic  party  should  peacefully  and  constitutionally 
secure  the  passage  of  a  Bill  forbidding  the  increase  of  the 
peerage,  and  that,  thereupon,  the  opposite  party  should  re- 
volt from  the  government  and  the  sovereign  head  that  made 
the  Bill  a  law  :  could  anybody  doubt  why  they  had  rebelled  ? 
Could  anybody  doubt  that  democracy  had  achieved  a  great 


ENGLAND   AND   AMERICA.  297 

victory — a  victory  that  extinguished  the  power  of  its  rivals, 
and  was  certain,  in  a  few  years,  to  abolish  their  whole  sys- 
tem ?  AVould  any  pretense  of  difference  of  blood,  and  de- 
sire for  separate  national  existence,  give  their  rebellion  char- 
acter with  a  democratic  people  ?  What  would  you  say  if 
America  should  be  deluded  by  such  appeals,  should  rec- 
ognize these  aristocratic  rebels  as  belligerents,  and  give 
them  protection  under  guise  of  neutrality  ;  while  leading 
New  York  democrats  should  send  them  guns  and  ammuni- 
tion, to  defend  themselves  against  their  legitimate  and  dem- 
ocratic rulers  ?  What  must  America  say,  when  an  abolition 
government  and  nation  recognize  these  supporters  of  slavery 
as  legitimately  rebellious,  and  permits  her  vessels  full  of  arms 
to  leave  her  ports  for  their  aid ;  and  when,  even,  great  Chris- 
tian, and  —  alas  !  that  I  must  say  it  —  great  Wesleyan,  ab- 
olitionists are  making  fortunes  through  such  atrocious  coop- 
eration ?  No  blood-money  wrung  from  the  enforced  toil  of 
slaves  is  as  bad  as  that. 

Slavery,  then,  is  the  cause  —  the  only  cause — of  the  re- 
bellion. To  traffic  in  the  bodies  and  souls  of  their  brethren, 
to  hold  them  as  beasts,  to  use  them  for  purposes  infinitely 
worse  than  they  use  their  vilest  beasts,  —  for  this  they  broke 
from  the  mildest  and  most  liberal  government  that  existed 
in  the  earth  ;  for  this  they  are  seeking  its  destruction. 
There  is  no  difference  in  blood ;  Davis,  Stephens,  Slidell,  and 
a  host  of  others,  are  of  Northern  origin.  All  are  of  one 
European,  one  American  blood.  There  is  one,  sole,  terrible 
difference,  —  it  is  Slavery. 

But  it  is  often  said  here,  If  slavery  be  the  cause  of  the 
war,  why  does  not  the  national  government  show  it  to  be 
so,  by  striking  directly  at  that  system  ?  I  answer,  The 
assailant  and  thing  assailed  are  two  different  things,  and  it 
is  the  first  duty  of  the  government  to  defend,  and,  if  possi- 
ble, preserve  that  which  is  assailed.  Slavery  is  the  enemy. 
That  which  is  attacked  is  the  Union  —  that  is,  the  govern- 


298  LETTER   TO   THE   LONDON   WATCHMAN. 

ment,  the  nationality  of  the  United  States.  What  she  must 
first  do  is  to  defend  that  Union,  and  to  preserve  it  from  de- 
struction. Though  slavery  is  the  causa  causans,  yet  what 
she  does  is  something  very  different  from  what  she  is.  The 
gold  the  thief  steals  is  a  different  thing  from  the  thievish 
disposition.  The  loser  seeks  his  money  before  he  aims  to 
abolish  the  propensity  that  robbed  him.  Slavery  stole  our 
arms,  forts,  ammunition  ;  cast  off  the  judicial,  the  executive, 
the  entire  national  authority ;  organized  armies,  and  assumed 
the  prerogatives  of  sovereignty.  What  the  government 
must  do  is,  not  first  to  abolish  slavery,  but  to  re-possess  it- 
self of  its  property,  re-assume  its  authority,  and  destroy  the 
insurrectionary  armies. 

Mr.  Seward,  the  winter  before  the  war  began,  well  said 
that  we  must  see  what  our  enemies  assail,  if  we  would  know 
what  we  should  defend.  They  had  ceased  to  oppose  the 
anti-slavery  policy  in  the  Union,  —  they  opposed  the  Union 
itself.  The  instincts  of  the  people  taught  them  that  this 
was  the  point  to  defend.  Hence  their  wonderful  unanimity 
and  enthusiasm  for  the  Union  ;  hence  innumerable  flags 
blazed  along  every  thoroughfare,  reddened  every  house-top, 
hung  over  every  door,  window,  and  mantel ;  children  car- 
ried them  in  all  their  sports  ;  ladies'  bonnets,  gentlemen's 
neck-ties,  children's  dresses,  all  assumed  the  national  colors 
—  the  symbol  of  the  nation's  life.  They  even  replaced  the 
more  solemn  drapery  of  the  pulpit  with  their  glowing  col- 
ors, and  above  the  steeple's  electric  finger,  or  the  heavenly 
cross,  they  waved,  instinct  with  spiritual,  with  divine  life. 
In  the  sacred  voluntaries  of  the  sanctuary  the  "  Star-span- 
gled Banner  "  was  played;  at  every  gathering  its  song  was 
sung.  This  was  not  because  of  the  especial  beauty  of  its 
words  or  music  ;  but  it  was  the  song  of  the  flag,  and  so  of 
the  Union.  Such  a  fever,  so  unanimous,  so  instinctive,  so 
mighty,  was  never  before  seen  in  history.  The  people  knew 
what  was  attacked,  and  what  to  defend  ;  and  they  sprang 


ENGLAND   AND   AMERICA.  299 

to  its  defense  with  a  zeal  immeasurable,  with  a  wisdom  from 
above.  It  would  seem  as  if  this  mighty  feeling  had  been 
providentially  hidden  in  secret,  so  that  it  should  not  be 
weakened  by  preliminary  conflicts  ;  that  when  it  should  ap- 
pear, the  Southern  sympathizer,  who  had  prepared  himself 
against  the  demands  of  freedom,  and  the  timid  conservative, 
who  trembled  at  them,  should  both  be  swept  into  the  cur- 
rent, and  the  one  be  filled  with  shame  and  silence,  the  other 
with  unwonted  zeal  and  heroism.  So  came  this  new  descent 
of  the  Spirit  of  God  on  a  praying  and  awaiting,  but 
otherwise  powerless,  people,  with  the  sound  as  of  a  mighty 
rushing  wind,  and  it  filled  the  whole  place,  the  whole  nation, 
with  new,  with  divine  life. 

This  defense,  of  itself,  without  primarily  attacking  the 
animus  of  its  assailants,  has  been  the  course  of  every  wise 
nation  and  ruler,  when  like  exigencies  came  upon  them. 
The  good  sense  of  America  is  simply  the  common  sense  of 
the  world.  England  has  suffered  many  insurrections.  She 
never  yet  violently  suppressed,  or  instantly  attacked,  the 
moving  cause  of  any  one  of  them.  Ireland  revolted  under 
the  lead  of  Romanism.  Her  rebellion  was  subdued,  her  Pa- 
pacy pampered.  The  Sepoys  revolted  under  the  inspirations 
of  Mohammedanism.  Parliament  makes  no  laws,  generals 
strike  no  blows,  at  that  superstition.  William  of  Orange 
overthrows  the  legitimate  king  in  the  interests  of  Protes- 
tantism. He  makes  no  edicts  against  the  religion  whose 
representative  he  had  driven  into  exile,  and  whom  he  had 
dethroned,  solely  because  of  his  adherence  to  that  faith.  So 
always  did  Rome,  wise  in  the  wisdom  of  government  above 
all  ancient  nations.  So,  with  equally  consummate  wisdom, 
acts  America. 

But  while  this  is  her  idea,  —  simple,  easily,  universally 
comprehended, — yet  let  it  be  considered,  that,  in  the  work- 
ing out  of  it,  slavery  inevitably,  perhaps  speedily,  dies. 
Romanism  did  not  long  live  a  vigorous  life  in  England,  if 


300  LETTER  TO   THE   LONDON   WATCHMAN. 

William  of  Orange  abstained  from  assailing  it.  Moham- 
medanism cannot  long  live  in  India,  if  its  power  is  completely 
broken.  Ireland  would  have  long  since  been  Protestant, 
had  she  been  treated  as  an  equal,  and  not  as  a  conquered, 
people.  So  Slavery,  girdled,  humbled,  powerless  to  restrain 
the  liberty  of  speech  and  of  the  press,  will  speedily  vanish. 
It  may  linger  for  a  generation  in  a  feeble,  dying  state.  It 
may,  and  probably  will,  flee  as  in  a  night.  It  is  crushed,  it 
must  die.  Nothing  can  save  it  but  the  success  of  the  re- 
bellion, and  that  cannot  save  it !  The  government  is  actu- 
ally, earnestly,  entirely  on  the  side  of  freedom.  It  has 
abolished  slavery  in  the  District  of  Columbia  ;  it  has  liber- 
ated thousands  in  the  march  of  its  armies  ;  it  has  given 
them  freedom,  work,  and  wages,  and  opened  schools  for 
their  instruction  in  Virginia,  Tennessee,  North  Carolina,  and 
South  Carolina.  It  has  declared  that  Slavery  shall  never 
exist  in  its  Territories,  in  language  such  as  no  other  gov- 
ernment on  earth  uses.  This  is  the  preamble  of  her  decree : 
"  To  the  end  that  FREEDOM  may  be,  and  remain  forever,  the 
fundamental  law  in  all  places  whatsoever,  so  far  as  it  lies 
within  the  power,  or  depends  upon  the  action,  of  the  gov- 
ernment of  the  United  States  to  make  it  so."  Such  is  the 
action  of  the  government.  It  will  go  further,  it  will  go 
to  the  uttermost,  if  the  rebellion  is  not  speedily  overthrown. 
The  struggle  will  never  be  ended  by  the  success  of  the  reb- 
els till  this  last  remedy  is  tried.  God  may  require  this  at 
our  hands  ;  if  so,  it  shall  not  be  refused.  The  people  are 
too  determined  to  make  any  terms  but  those  of  submission ; 
and  slaves  will  be  freed,  armed,  and  arrayed  side  by  side 
with  their  white  brethren,  if  in  no  other  way  the  govern- 
ment can  be  preserved. 

This  is  the  cause  of  this  gigantic  rebellion,  as  seen  in  the 
action  both  of  rebel  and  loyal.  The  government  steadily 
approaches  that  great  magazine  which  they  revolted  to  pre- 
serve. It  may  be  compelled  to  put  the  torch  to  it.  The 


ENGLAND    AND   AMERICA.  301 

explosion  may  be  terrible,  will  be  glorious.  Four  millions 
of  men  and  women  may  enter  into  liberty  with  a  Red  Sea 
deliverance,  with  a  Red  Sea  destruction  of  their  oppressors. 
When  God  speaks  to  our  Moses,  "Say  unto  the  people  that 
they  go  forward,"  He  will  give  the  command,  and  they  will 
march  ;  and  if  the  cruel  oppressors  still  retain  their  hard 
and  impenitent  hearts,  they  will  sink  like  lead  in  the  mighty 
waters. 

For  this,  be  assured,  is  with  the  people  of  America  a 
struggle  for  the  highest  national  life.  It  is  not  a  mere  strug- 
gle for  ordinary  national  being.  They  prize  their  Constitu- 
tion and  Union  not  because  they  are,  but  because  of  what 
they  embody  and  guarantee.  They  are  the  seat,  the  center, 
in  their  judgment,  we  may  say  in  .the  judgment  of  the 
world,  of  the  highest  civil  life.  They  are  based  on  one 
maxim  :  the  majority  of  the  people  shall  govern,  if  they 
govern  according  to  the  letter  of  a  just  Constitution.  If 
they  violate  that,  the  minority  have  a  right  to  rebel.  If 
the  Constitution  fails  in  any  part,  or  transgresses  the  divine 
law,  out  of  which  all  human  law  ought  to  flow,  it  provides 
for  its  peaceful  amendment,  so  that  its  letter  may  ever  con- 
form to  the  growing  intelligence  of  the  ages.  Such  a  Con- 
stitution the  world  never  saw  before.  If  it  be  destroyed 
through  the  weakness  of  its  friends  and  violence  of  its  ene- 
mies, the  cause  of  equal  civil  liberty  fails  in  the  world.  This 
is  the  profound  conviction  of  the  American  people  ;  it  may 
be  the  offspring  of  vanity,  but  for  it  they  are  willing  to  spend 
the  last  drop  of  their  blood  and  the  last  farthing  of  their 
treasure.  Their  reasoning  is  simple,  it  is  sublime.  It  is 
this :  Only  two  modes  of  government  can  exist  among  men, 
one  based  on  the  decision  of  the  majority  of  the  people,  the 
other  on  a  class,  elect  and  separate.  The  first  is  our  sys- 
tem. We  believe  it  to  be  the  right,  and  the  only  right  one. 
It  is  assailed  ;  the  minority  refuse  to  abide  by  the  decisions 
of  the  majority  ;  they  take  no  peaceable  ways  of  securing 


302  LETTER  TO  THE  LONDON  WATCHMAN. 

their  rights  professedly  assailed,  but  scornfully,  violently, 
and  murderously  throw  off  allegiance  to  the  government. 
To  permit  this  is  to  confess  that  we  have  ceased  to  be  a 
nation.  It  is  to  substitute  the  other  system  of  government 
for  the  one  we  have  adopted.  It  is  to  say  the  minority 
rules,  for  it  has  its  way,  not  we  ours.  That  is  only  the  old 
world  system  over  again.  The  slaveholders  are  our  nobles, 
we  their  serfs.  Out  of  their  number,  after  long  conflict 
among  themselves,  may  come  a  William  of  Normandy,  a 
Charlemagne,  or  a  Napoleon,  who  will  seize  and  transmit 
the  regal  power  ;  and  democratic  equality,  representative 
and  constitutional  liberty,  fade  away  from  the  earth.  So 
they  said,  so  felt.  And,  feeling  thus,  as  one  man  they  de- 
clared this  first  rebellion  against  their  fundamental  axiom 
shall  be  overthrown.  If  the  majority  use  their  power  wrong- 
fully, revolution  is  just.  But  when  used  for  liberty,  for 
justice,  for  the  best  interests  of  the  world,  it  shall  not  be 
trampled  under  foot  by  a  despotism  "  built  in  the  eclipse 
and  rigged  with  curses  dark."  God  helping  us,  this  devil 
of  an  aristocracy  shall  not  dethrone  the  angel  of  democracy. 
He  will  help  us,  and  Michael  shall  prevail  over  the  dragon. 
It  is'  not  possible,  jt  seems  to  me,  for  any  European  peo- 
ple thoroughly  to  apprehend  the  feelings  of  the  American 
people  in  this  great  crisis  of  its  history.  They  are  on  a 
lower  plane  of  civil  life.  They  are  ruled  over.  We  are  the 
rulers.  They  reverence  a  class ;  we  the  whole.  They  have 
no  part,  or  the  least  possible,  in  the  administration  of  affairs. 
We  are  the  sources  of  administrative  power,  and  our  King 
and  his  Ministers  are  required  every  few  years  to  submit 
themselves  as  our  representatives  to  our  judgment.  We 
feel,  therefore,  precisely  as  a  king  feels  when  his  crown  is 
assailed.  Himself  and  his  family  are  chiefly  in  his  mind. 
It  was  not  the  interests  of  the  people  that  troubled  Charles 
I.,  or  James  II.,  or  Napoleon,  or  the  King  of  Naples,  or 
any  dethroned  or  attacked  monarch,  but  family  interests. 


ENGLAND   AND   AMERICA.  303 

His  crown  is  his  fortune.  To  dethrone  him  is  to  rob  him. 
Hence  he  fights  for  it.  Hence  he  is  careful  to  transmit  it, 
if  possible,  to  his  children.  So  does  every  American  feel. 
He  is  a  sovereign.  His  sovereignty  is  assailed.  He  must 
defend  it,  even  to  the  death,  or  he  is  a  worm  and  no  man. 
He  must  transmit  this  great  inheritance  to  his  children  and 
his  children's  children.  It  is  worth  more  than  any  crown 
or  any  kingly  seat.  Queen  Victoria  has  no  such  gift  for 
Albert  Edward  as  the  poorest  man  in  America  has  for  all 
his  children.  She  can  transmit  authority  over  millions  of 
subjects  ;  he,  authority,  with  millions  of  equals,  over  his 
rulers.  They  are  all  of  royal  blood,  all  equal  heirs  to  kingly 
honors.  This  may,  and  probably  will,  seem  vain  and  child- 
ish to  many  of  your  readers  ;  so  does  a  Christian's  expe- 
rience to  many  a  proud  listener.  But  it  is  true,  neverthe- 
less, and,  like  that,  is  in  harmony  with  the  profoundest 
reason.  It  is  consistent,  as  we  have  seen,  with  the  uni- 
versal instinct.  We  have  no  class.  We  had  one.  It 
has  tried  to  do  as  they  all  have  done  elsewhere  —  assume 
rights  above  its  fellows.  We  have  risen  upon  it ;  we  shall 
grind  it  to  powder.  Its  name  shall  rot.  As  William  the 
Conqueror  blotted  out  the  great  house  of  Alfred,  and"  with 
it  the  royal  dominion  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  blood,  extermi- 
nating it  so  utterly  that  only  French  mottoes  blaze  on  Eng- 
land's banners,  and  French  phrases  make  its  legislative  wishes 
a  law,*  so  shall  this  uprising  of  an  aristocracy — of  a  cacoc- 
racy  rather  —  be  blotted  out  in  America.  Not  by  a  selfish 
and  cruel  man,  for  his  own  selfish  and  cruel  interests,  but 
by  a  great  people,  for  themselves,  their  children,  and  the 
world.  For  it  is  another  peculiarity  of  American  feeling, — 
in  the  opinion  of  others,  perhaps  also  a  vanity ;  in  their 
own,  an  inspiration,  —  that  they  a're  fighting  the  battle  of 
the  world. 

*  The  Queen,  or  her  Minister,  acknowledges  the  enactments  of  Parlia- 
ment by  a  French  phrase  —  La  Reine  le  veut. 


304  LETTER  TO  THE  LONDON  WATCHMAN. 

Great  Britain,  in  her  conflicts,  is  inspired  by  the  cry  of 
Nelson,  "England  expects  every  man  to  do  his  duty;" 
France  appeals  to  the  glory  of  France  ;  America  feels  that 
she  is  struggling  for  the  rights  of  mankind.  It  is  no  new 
feeling  with  her.  You  will  find  it  on  the  monument  to  her 
heroes  that  fell  at  Lexington,  "  Sacred  to  Liberty  and  the 
Rights  of  Mankind."  You  will  find  it  in  her  Declaration  of  In- 
dependence. That  great  paper  is  the  statement  of  the  rights 
of  all  men.  You  will  find  it  rooted  and  grounded  in  her 
earliest  history.  It  inspired  the  Pilgrims  of  Plymouth,  the 
settlers  of  Rhode  Island,  of  Pennsylvania,  of  Maryland,  of 
Georgia.  It  is  on  its  greatest  and  probably  final  trial  to-day. 
The  war  of  the  Revolution  made  her  a  nation.  To  become 
and  be  a  nation,  a  people  must  first  secure  their  liberty, 
then  defend  it  from  without  and  from  within.  America  had 
secured  hers  after  seven  years  of  terrible  suifering.  She 
had  maintained  it,  so  that  all  the  caste  powers  of  the  earth 
feared,  if  they  did  not  respect  her.  In  her  unmailed  arm 
they  saw  her  sleeping  thunders.  With  but  the  skeleton  of 
a  navy,  with  not  a  score  of  thousands  in  her  army,  she  pro- 
tected her  citizens,  native  or  adopted,  in  every  sea  and 
under  every  flag.  Now  comes  the  assault  from  within.  If 
she  yields,  if  she  is  humbled,  equal  liberty  disappears  from 
the  earth.  "  The  bubble  of  democracy  is  broken,"  as  Nes- 
selrode  said,  and  kings  and  rulers  may  revel,  unaffrighted  by 
Belshazzar  visions  of  dissolving  kingdoms  and  vanishing 
scepters. 

She  sees  the  eyes  of  the  peoples  of  Europe  fastened  upon 
her,  no  less  than  those  of  their  rulers.  She  knows  that  if 
any  people  are  yet  blind  through  ignorance  and  degradation, 
their  children  will  come  to  her  light.  She  knows  God  has 
lifted  her  up,  for  the  world's  benefit  and  blessing  ;  and,  so 
knowing,  a  grander  inspiration  possesses  her.  She  may  be 
ridiculed  for  this.  Yet  she  is  not  alone  in  her  pride.  One 
cannot  read  a  British  journal,  or  hear  a  British  speech,  or 


ENGLAND   AND    AMERICA.  305 

hardly  open  one  of  her  books,  where  her  greatness  is  not 
set  forth  in  full  if  not  fulsome  phrase.  France  is  as  little 
afflicted  with  modesty.  Both  are  partly  right ;  both  have 
honorable  qualities,  and,  in  many  things,  an  honorable  fame. 
Yet  the  achievements  and  the  liberties  of  America  are  far 
greater  than  theirs.  France  owes  whatever  of  liberty  or 
equality  she  possesses  to  America.  America  owes  their 
germs  to  England,  but  their  growth  and  greatness  are  her 
own.  It  is  the  seed  of  the  age  of  Cromwell,  first  betrayed 
by  him,  and  then  trodden  under  foot  by  succeeding  dynasties, 
which  has  found  a  good  soil,  there,  and  is  bringing  forth 
fruit  a  hundredfold.  .It  will  be  transplanted  to  Europe, 
and  all  nations  shall  sit  under  its  blessed  branches. 

For  these  armed  and  separated  kingdoms  must  become 
peaceful,  United,  States.  Destroy  distinctions  in  society; 
make  the  ruler  subject  to  a  written  Constitution  ;  choose 
him  out  of  the  people,  to  return  in  a  brief  time  to  the  people  ; 
in  a  word,  make  the  people  sovereign,  arid  armies  and  arma- 
ments will  cease.  Terror  of  each  other,  wasteful  expendi- 
tures to  defend  themselves  against  each  other,  yet  heavier 
ones  to  maintain  a  costly  and  useless  pomp  of  government, 
will  also  cease.  England,  like  New  York,  will  be  simply  a 
great  State,  with  its  governor  and  local  administration  of 
affairs.  And  New  York  is  to-day  as  wisely  and  liberally 
governed  as  England ;  far  more  liberally  in  the  matter  of 
education.  Scotland,  in  like  manner,  will  enjoy  the  bless- 
ings of  a  real  and  not,  as  now,  a  quasi  independence  and 
union.  Ireland  will  have  its  governor  elected  by  its  people  ; 
France,  Austria,  Italy,  Spain,  each  theirs.  Each  is  no 
larger,  no  better,  than  the  States  of  the  American  Union. 
Each,  I  may  proudly  say,  with  all  its  great  history,  has 
no  equal  history  ;  for  in  none  of  them  is  the  most  vital  of 
all  social  and  civil  duties  —  the  education,  the  elevation,  the 
liberty  of  all  —  so  thoroughly  carried  out.  These  shall  yet 
be  one  Kepublic,  a  European  Union  ;  copying  the  American,^ 
20 


306  LETTER   TO   THE   LONDON    WATCHMAN. 

forerunning1  the  World  Republic.  Call  not  this  a  fantasy.  It 
is  the  democratic  prophecy  of  England's  laureate,  drawn  from 
our  living  example.  It  shall  be  fulfilled  in  the  earth  when  — 

"The  war  drums  beat  no  longer,  and  the  battle  flag  is  furled 
In  the  Parliament  of  Man  —  the  federation  of  the  World ! 
Then  the  common  sense  of  Most  will  keep  a  fretful  realm  in  awe, 
And  the  holy  earth  will  slumber,  lapped  in  universal  law." 

It  is  essential  to  this  era  of  accomplished  bliss  that  the 
American  Republic  be  preserved  ;  for  it  is,  what  "  Black- 
wood  "  has  long  jeeringly  called  it,  "  the  Model  Republic." 
Not  that  it  is  developed  to  the  fullness  of  its  own  principles. 
This  very  conflict  has  been  thrust  upon  it  by  Divine  Prov- 
idence because  it  had  become  unfaithful  to  those  principles. 
It  had  ceased  to  regard  all  men  as  equal.  Through  social, 
financial,  and  political  interests  it  had  been  tempted  to 
disregard  the  cry  of  the  slave ;  it  had  allowed  his  masters 
to  rivet  the  chains  which  previous  generations  had  cast 
upon  them.  God  rose  upon  -us  in  judgment.  He  made 
us  feel  that  our  boasted  strength  was  perfect  weakness  ; 
that  we  should  disappear  as  speedily  as  we  had  arisen,  un- 
less we  gave  full  scope  and  play  to  those  principles  which 
He  had  breathed  into  us,  which  were  our  breath  of  life,  and 
by  which  alone  we  had  become  a  living,  national  soul. 
Everybody  saw  it  in  the  flashing  of  an  eye  ;  and  hence  the 
unanimous  cry,  "  The  Union  shall  be  preserved  ;  let  Slavery 
die."  This  takes  a  much  stronger  form  in  most,  but  its 
lowest  expression  is  this. 

We  have  yet  a  great  work  to  do  in  this  matter  —  a  work 
which  no  European  can  comprehend,  which  almost  every 
American  yet  shrinks  from,  but  whose  preliminary  steps,  to 
our  honor  it  shall  be  said,  we  are  willing  to  take,  letting 
Providence  direct  the  issue.  It  is  this — the  African  race  is 
in  among  us,  in  slavery  or  akiji  to  it.  It  is  unlike  every 
other  race,  who  are  welcomed,  whose  lineage  -is  speedily 
forgotten,  and  whose  blood  mingles  freely  each  with  each. 


ENGLAND   AND   AMERICA.  307 

The  distinctions  and  pride  of  European  races  have  totally 
disappeared  there.  I  know  eminent  families  in  whose 
blood  a  half  dozen  of  these  races  are  represented.  We 
therefore  cease  to  talk  of  English,  Irish,  German,  French, 
Celtic,  Teutonic,  or  any  such  clannish  blood.  We  call  our- 
selves the  Caucasian —  the  white  race.  Yet  this  is  clannish. 

| 

And  as  these  narrow  feelings  dwell  in  European  nationalities, 
so  this  like  narrow,  if  larger,  sentiment  works  in  us.  Now 
the  problem  is  thrust  upon  us  by  Providence,  of  the  relation 
of  the  Caucasian  to  the  African  race  —  the  white  to  the 
black.  Our  fundamental  and  most  vital  theories  require 
that  we  make  no  distinction  ;  that  we  be  as  unmindful  of 
the  accident  of  color  as  that  of  birth  or  tongue.  But  our 
feelings  are  powerfully  averse  to  the  conclusions  to  which 
we  are  thus  driven.  We  cannot  deny  our  foundation  princi- 
ples ;  we  cannot  instantly  overcome  the  repugnance  of 
generations. 

It  will  not  do  for  Europeans  to  say,  We  have  overcome  it ; 
there  is  no  distinction  of  color  here.  This  is  not  quite  true. 
I  saw  but  three  colored  men  in  England,  and  they  were  all 
engaged  in  menial  occupations,  and  one  was  dragging  his 
heavy  mistress  round  the  streets — a  service  to  which  no 
Southern  slave  was  ever  humiliated.  I  have  seen  like  few 
in  France,  and  in  no  case  have  I  seen  gentlemen  and  ladies 
freely  associating  with  them.  They  seem  to  be  alone.  At 
the  Madeleine  an  elegantly  dressed  lady  of  color  sat  alone, 
and  though  in  a  most  eligible  seat  and  a  crowded  assembly, 
the  chairs  near  her  were  left  vacant. 

But  if  received,  they  are  only  admitted  to  the  lower 
grades.  Let  us  see  them  in  your  House  of  Commons,  in 
your  House  of  Lords,  generals  in  your  army,  riding  in  state 
and  authority  above  the  people.  Let  your  prince  follow  the 
greater  of  Hebrew  princes,  and  make  a  daughter  of  the 
dark  race  the  sharer  of  his  throne,  and  you  would  see 
whether  England  was  as  free  from  prejudice  as  she  boasts. 


308  LETTER   TO   THE    LONDON   WATCHMAN. 

If  every  sixth  person  in  Great  Britain  was  more  or  less 
African  ;  if,  in  some  counties,  two  out  of  every  three  were 
of  this  color  ;  if  you,  that  were  white,  had  imported  them  or 
their  ancestors  as  property,  and  still  regarded  them  as  such  ; 
or  if,  becoming  weaned,  by  Providential  dispensation,  from 
that  conviction,  you  were  instantly  required  to  look  upon 
them  as  equals,  to  grant  them  all  rights  and  privileges, 
social  and  civil ;  yea,  more,  if  you  were  required  to  place 
them  in  your  ruling  class,  to  make  them  your  nobles  and 
kings,  you  would  have  some  idea  of  the  work  of  America. 

She  can  have  no  lower  class.  She  cannot,  by  virtue  of 
her  very  nature,  persist  in  distinguishing  between  men  on 
account  of  complexion.  She  knows  no  Europe,  no  Asia,  no 
America,  before  the  law ;  she  must  know  no  Africa.  Yet 
this  non-recognition  brings  in  its  shadowy  train  many  a  yet 
abhorrent  recognition.  If  all  avenues  are  thrown  open,  who 
knows  whither  they  will  mount  ?  Hence  her  principles  and 
her  feelings  are  engaged  in  a  terrific  struggle.  Nothing  but 
the  danger  of  losing  her  own  liberties  could  have  made  her 
grant  the  African  his.  Nothing  but_the  sacrifice _of  his  own 
equality  would  make  a  white  citizen  admit  the  black  as  a 
sharer.  The  slaveholders  had  an  immense  leverage  in  the 
depth  and  universality  of  this  sentiment.  They  believed  the 
people  would  prefer  them  as  rulers  to  the  admission  of 
Africans  as  equals.  The  people  have  rejected  them,  in  view 
of  the  possibility,  the  probability,  of  the  latter  alternative. 
This  is  far  from  being  settled  ;  but  the  first  steps  are  taken. 
Many  seek  to  expatriate  the  negro  ;  but  he  will  not  go,  and 
they  dare  not  drive  him  out.  Hence  they  wait  the  move- 
ments of  Providence.  It  may  be  that  higher  than  all  their 
thoughts,  far  beyond  all  their  desires,  we  are  working  out 
another  problem  that  must  be  solved  before  the  Millennium 
comes.  It  may  be  that  the  unity,  as  well  as  the  equality,  of 
the  human  race  is  to  be  first  reestablished  in  America.  The 
dispersion  of  Babel,  continued  for  thousands  of  years,  yet 


ENGLAND   AND   AMERICA.  309 

potent  in  all  the  earth,  may  cease  there  first.  To  her  may 
the  gathering  of  all  the  nations  be.  The  extreme  races  of 
mankind  are  forced  together  in  a  land  whose  greatest,  all- 
engrossing  idea,  is  the  perfect  equalhy  of  all  men.  They  are 
being  welded  in  the  fiery  furnace  of  war,  and  weakness,  and 
sorrow.  They  may  become  one  and  indivisible.  If  so,  and 
if,  being  so,  the  central  idea  of  her  nationality  is  unweak- 
ened,  if  all  men,  of  whatever  shade  or  origin,  move  freely 
in  the  great  currents  of  social  and  civil  life,  then  has 
she  indeed  a  high,  the  highest  possible  honor.  Then  will 
she  be  the  guide  and  example  of  the  world.  At  present 
it  must  be  honestly  said,  she  desires  no  such  honor.  It 
is  a  greatness,  of  the  kind  which  Bacon  says  is  thrust 
upon  man.  But  she  is  determined  to  be  faithful  to  her 
principles  in  view  of  even  such  a  possibility.  The  time  will 
come  when  she  will  hail  it  as  a  privilege.  Europeans  of  the 
higher  and  middle  classes,  even,  shrink  to-day  from  such 
relations  with  their  own  blood  in  the  lower  classes  with  un- 
utterable abhorrence.  They  can  throw  no  stones  at  Ameri- 
cans. What  fearful  processes  our  Creator  may  employ  to 
break  up  all  these  prejudices,  everywhere  prevailing,  He 
only  knows.  They  must  be  abolished  ;  for  He  Himself 
makes  no  such  distinction  among  the  children  of  Adam. 
They  must  be  like  Him  in  this  regard  in  respect  to  each 
other. 

It  is  not  necessary  for  me  to  say  that  we  do  not  con- 
demn the  course  of  all  the  citizens  of  Britain  because  we 
must  that  of  their  government.  We  gratefully  recognize 
the  sympathy  of  not  a  few  of  her  eminent  and  private  men. 
We  gladly  commend  the  foresight,  wisdom,  as  well  as  con- 
stant abolitionism  of  George  Thompson  ;  the  bold  and  true 
democratic  utterances  of  John  Bright ;  the  faithful  and  able 
services  of  the  Star  and  the  News,  and  of  a  few  other 
sheets  in  the  minor  cities  of  the  kingdom.  We  rejoice 
that  Dr.  Jobson,  and  William  Arthur,  and  Robinson  Scott 


310  LETTER   TO   THE   LONDON   WATCHMAN. 

have  not  failed  us  in  this  hour,  but  have  steadily  approved 
our  course,  and  confidently  awaited  our  success. 

Let  it  also  be  remembered  that  America  does  not  re- 
fuse to  recognize  any  excellences  in  England,  though  her 
leading  journals  and  statesmen  find  it  very  difficult  to 
see  any  good  in  America.  She  acknowledges  her  indebted- 
ness to  the  men  who  wrested  the  Magna  Charta  from  an 
unwilling  despot ;  to  the  greater  men  of  later  date,  Hamp- 
den,  Vane,  Eussell,  Sydney,  Granville  Sharpe,  Erskine, 
Fox,  Wilberforce,  and  many  others,  who,  by  their  labors, 
dangers,  and  in  not  a  few  cases  by  their  martyrdom,  ad- 
vanced the  cause  of  human  rights  not  only  in  Britain,  but 
throughout  the  world.  She  rejoices  that  the  encroachments 
of  aristocracy  and  monarchy  on  the  liberties  of  the  people 
have  thus  been  resisted  and  beaten  back,  and  that  these 
powers  have  been  at  least  girdled  and  limited.  These  are 
proud  names,  which  she  delights  to  honor.  They  have 
labored,  and  she  enters  into  their  labors,  not  to  revel  idly 
in  the  fruit  of  their  toil,  but  to  carry  forward  the  work  they 
so  perilously,  so  gloriously  begun.  A  saying  of  Algernon 
Sydney  is  the  motto  of  Massachusetts  —  the  spirit  of 
Sydney  is  the  spirit  of  America.  There  these  great  Britons 
find  a  more  congenial  home  than  in  their  own  yet  half- 
liberated  land.  There  it  is  that  Milton's  spirit,  as  well  as 
language,  is  the  mother  tongue.  Every  heart  beats  in 
unison  with  his  principles  ;  every  institution  conforms  to 
their  high  behests.  What  is  discordant  must  disappear, 
what  concordant  must  go  on  to  perfection. 

Neither  does  America  quarrel  with  the  crowned  heads  of 
Europe  because  they  are  crowned.  She  has  had  imbecility, 
if  not  treachery,  in  some  whom  she  had  appointed  to  main- 
tain her  authority.  She  knows  that  with  the  most  irre- 
sponsible powers  an  Antonine  ruled  wisely.  She  acknowl- 
edges the  good  sense  and  admirable  virtues  of  Victoria,  and 
rejoices  that  she  feels  the  gratitude,  as  a  mother  and  a 


ENGLAND   AND   AMERICA.  311 

sovereign,  which  her  government,  as  subjects,  have  forgot- 
ten. She  recognizes  the  consummate  tact  of  Napoleon,  the 
wisdom  of  Victor  Emanuel,  and  the  larger,  because  more 
liberal,  nature  of  Alexander  of  Russia,  —  more  worthy  than 
the  first  of  that  nam'e  to  be  called  Alexander  the  Great.  Yet 
these  exceptional  cases  cannot  blind  her  eyes  to  the  wrong- 
fulness  of  the  system  on  which,  though  not  of  which,  they 
flourish.  As  excellent  have  been  not  a  few  slaveholders. 
Does  England  therefore  approve  of  that  institution  ?  So  she 
feels  that  the  structure  of  society  on  this  basis  is  wrong,  and 
that,  as  great  and  virtuous,  far  more  so,  as  a  whole,  would 
their  rulers  be,  if  from  and  with  the  people. 

It  only  needs  a  Washington  and  Jefferson  to  prove  this. 
They  will  appear  when  the  people  shall  call  for  them ;  and 
when  that  call  is  made,  you,  too,  may  feel  the  throes  of 
civil  convulsions.  They  have  always  attended  the  birth 
of  new  liberties.  England,  France,  Italy,  have  organized 
in  the  State  the  new  demands  of  human  nature  only  with 
fierce  civil  wars.  It  seems  to  be  a  necessity  laid  upon  man 
that  every  triumph  of  Freedom  must  be  through  blood. 
Would  that  the  powers  now  leagued  against  her  here  would 
take  warning  from  the  fate  of  their  natural  allies  in  America, 
and  yield  without  resistance  to  her  divine  demands.  But  it 
is  not  probable  that  they  will  thus  learn  wisdom.  Wrong 
power  never  has".  It  has  always  to  be  overthrown  by  armed 
right.  Sydney's  and  Massachusetts'  motto  is  painfully  true : 
Ense  petit  placidam  sub  libertale  quietem —  She  seeks  with  the 
sword  serene  repose  under  liberty.  Hence  it  is  more  than 
probable  that  England's  now  peaceful  and  lovely  fields  will 
again  reecho  with  the  ragings  of  civil  war.  Almost  every 
rood  of  her  soil  has  been  made  fat  with  fraternal  blood  ;  and 
the  warfare  is  not  yet  accomplished.  It  is  but  just  begun. 
Her  masses  with  but  little  culture,  comfort,  civil  rights,  or 
social  equality.  A  few  persons  cover  all  her  lands  with 


312  LETTER   TO   THE  LONDON   WATCHMAN. 

their  seal,  while,  as  Tennyson  declares,  and  declares  too 
truly,  - 

"  Her  poor  are  huddled  and  hustled  together,  each  sex  like  swine;  " 

the  right  of  primogeniture  separating  between  children,  and 
impoverishing  all  but  one,  that  he  may  be  unnaturally  hon- 
ored ;  a  ruling  class,  based  on  birth,  not  worth  ;  a  church 
claiming  exclusive  privilege,  protection,  and  power ;  a  chief 
ruler  born  to  his  seat,  and,  as  history  has  proved,  almost  as 
frequently  a  curse  as  a  blessing  to  his  subjects, — these  rad- 
ical and  profound  evils,  as  they  appear  to  Americans,  as  they 
are  appearing  to  all  men,  must  be  abolished.  Before  their 
abolition,  they  must  be  boldly  assailed.  Said  I  not  truly  the 
warfare  has  hardly  begun  ?  It  will  begin.  The  August 
day  of  wealth  and  quiet  which  she  is  now  enjoying  is  no 
greater  than  that  which  America  enjoyed  two  years  ago. 
We  had  to  arise  and  attack  a  gigantic  foe  or  surrender  our 
liberties.  So  must  Britain  arise.  Somebody  must  sound  the 
democratic  trumpet  here,  and  call  the  people  to  contend  for 
their  rights,  peacefully,  sternly,  unto  the  triumphant  end. 
He  who  calls  for  this  glorious  warfare  may  find  that  the 
traitor's  gate  of  the  Tower  can  still  be  opened,  and  that  the 
headman's  ax  is  yet  sharp,  if  rusty. 

More  than  one  has  had  to  lay  down  his  life  in  America 
before  the  conflict  came  to  its  armed  and  final  issue.  Love- 
joy  died  at  the  hands  of  a  mob,  defending  liberty  of  speech. 
Torrey  expired  in  a  Maryland  dungeon  for  seeking  to  deliver 
the  captives.  Others  have  been  offered  on  the  altar  of  this 
faith,  until  the  traitor's  gibbet  was  honored  with  the  heroic 
martyrdom  of  John  Brown  and  his  devoted  band.  For  some 
yet  unknown  heroes  in  your  land  the  hemlock  and  the  laurel 
are  perhaps  now  growing.  I  hope  and  pray  that  this  work 
may  require  no  such  sacrifices,  but  that,  by  peaceful  agita- 
tion, this  divine  purpose  may  be  accomplished.  But  it  must 
be  begun,  and  on  their  heads  be  the  guilt  who  seek  thus  to 


ENGLAND   AND   AMERICA.  313 

suppress  it.  When  accomplished,  —  whether,  as  we  hope, 
peacefully,  or,  as  may  possibly  happen,  by  such  a  conflict  as 
America  is  now  passing  through,  —  there  will  be  a  new 
England,  far  lovelier  than  the  past  or  present ;  an  England 
not  only  of  charming  ruins,  and  fields,  and  roads,  and  sheep, 
and  kine,  of  castles  and  villas,  where  a  sumptuous  nobility 
or  the  comfortable  middle  class,  dwell  in  delightful  seclusion, 
but  an  England  where  the  multitudinous  masses  are  upraised 
in  intelligence,  comfort,  and  dignity ;  where  all  have  equal 
rights,  and  legislators  and  governors,  elected  by  the  people, 
feel  that  they  are  one  with  the  people.  The  kindness  which 
now  beautifies  many  in  these  high  stations  will  not  then  be, 
as  now,  one  of  condescension,  but  of  the  promptings  of 
equality  and  fraternity.  Then,  and  not  till  then,  shall  the 
saying  of  the  Great  Alfred  (one  of  our  founders  as  well  as 
of  yours,  for  both  peoples  were  in  his  loins)  be  fulfilled,  that 
"  England  wishes  every  man  to  be  as  free  as  his  own 
thoughts." 

It  is  no  child's  play  that  is  laid  upon  the  Englishmen  of 
to-day.  It  is  no  chaffering  between  two  pampered  and  pur- 
poseless parties,  whose  quarrels  are  almost  as  powerless  for 
the  good  of  the  State  as  were  those  of  the  Court  of  Louis  XV. 
They  may  be  swept  away,  as  those  were,  by  the  strong  wind 
of  a  political  revolution.  May  the  men  of  Britain  see  and 
seize  this  arduous,  glorious  calling.  May  they  gird  their 
loins  to  the  great  work.  Then  will  disinthralled  America 
forget  the  conduct  of  the  present  ruling  caste,  and  with  the 
Commonwealth  of  England  hold  firm  and  eternal  concord ; 
for  they  will  be  one  in  feeling,  work,  and  victory. 

But  I  may  be  intruding  upon  your  courtesy  by  such  ut- 
terances, though  they  have  legitimate  connection  with  the 
whole  argument ;  for,  to  the  American  mind,  democracy  is  in 
.debate  on  her  fields,  and  anti-democracy  alone  is  the  baleful 
animus  of  English  silence  and  practical  complicity.  But 
these  words,  to  be  effectual  in  England,  must  be  proclaimed 


314  LETTER   TO   THE   LONDON   WATCHMAN. 

by  Englishmen.  My  excuse  for  the  liberty  I  have  indulged, 
if  any  is  needed,  is  that,  though  writing  in  France,  I  am 
writing  to  England.  Here  a  government  professedly  based 
on  seven  and  a  half  millions  of  free  votes  dare  not  allow  a 
single  obscure  word  in  an  obscure  journal  to  question  its 
pretended  popular  sovereignty  ;  but  Britain  has  long  re- 
joiced in  perfect  liberty  of  speech  and  press.  We  trust  it  is 
no  vain  boasting.  It  must  be  perfect,  or  it  is  .no  liberty  ;  if 
it  cannot  discuss  the  system  as  well  as  the  policy  of  its 
government  —  the  constitution  as  well  as  the  administra- 
tion —  it  is  as  much  paralyzed  as  though  stricken  with  utter 
dumbness.  I  remember,  too,  that  one  of  your  own  poets 

has  said,  — 

"  Let  us  ponder  boldly ;  'tis  a  base 
Abandonment  of  reason  to  resign 
Our  right  of  thought." 

But  freedom  of  thought  is  riot  freedom  unless  that  of  speech 
accompany  it. 

As  the  utmost  license  of  honest  utterance  exists  in  respect 
to  every  other  subject,  so  it  must  in  respect  to  this  also. 
Our  Creator  subjects  His  nature,  government,  and  move- 
ments to  the  scrutiny  of  all  His  intelligent  creatures.  If  He 
thus  casts  His  works  and  Word,  His  Gospel,  and  Himself  in 
His  Incarnation,  in  His  Trinity,  in  all  His  nature  and  work- 
ings into  the  crucible  of  honest  discussion,  certainly  this  far 
lesser  idea  of  civil  government  cannot  claim  exemption.  If 
kings  are  kings,  as  they  say  they  are,  Dei  gratia,  then 
they  must  be  content  with  the  condition  He  has  imposed  on 
His  own  royalty.  "It  is  enough  for  the  servant  that  he  be 
as  his  Master."  But  it  has  no  exemption  in  reality.  Their 
own  government  is  discussed  privately  by  Europeans,  in 
every  parlor,  kitchen,  and  workshop,  as  much  as  the  Ameri- 
can is  in  America.  It  must  be  publicly  here  as  it  is  there. 
Let  not  the  advocates  of  any  system  fear  for  the  result.  As 
was  said  of  an  infinitely  greater  cause,  involved  in  an  in- 


ENGLAND   AND   AMERICA.  315 

finitely  more  vital  controversy,  so  may  it  be  of  these  con- 
flicting ideas  of  government  :  "If  they  be  of  man,  they  will 
come  to  naught ;  but  if  of  God,  we  cannot  overthrow  them, 
lest  haply  we  be  found  fighting  against  God."  Napoleon 
said  Europe  in  half  a  century  would  be  Republican  or  Cos- 
sack. The  Crimean  War  prevented  the  triumph  of  the 
latter ;  the  rule  of  the  slave  power  in  America  has  thus  far 
prevented  the  former.  If  that  be  overthrown,  it  is  not  too 
late  in  the  remaining  decade  of  time  he  suggested,  to  have 
his  prophecy  fulfilled.  He  saw  at  least  that  the  world  was 
too  small  for  such  hostile  systems  to  long  hold  equal  sov- 
ereignty. It  is  getting  smaller  every  day.  All  men  must 
soon  decide  whether  they  will  rule  themselves,  or  be  ruled 
by  a  self-elected  few.  Four  reunions  of  the  world's  indus- 
try within  ten  years  show  us  how  compact,  how  interwoven, 
is  the  family  of  man.  In  like  manner  the  world's  politics 
should  be  calmly,  carefully,  and  courageously  considered 
by  the  world's  representatives.  It  will  be  considered,  but 
whether  in  this  or  a  more  violent  form,  God  knows. 

But,  finally,  it  is  perhaps  only  a  proper  expression  of 
gratitude  for  an  American  to  speak  thus  freely  to  Great 
Britain  of  her  great  defect  and  duty.  You  sent  one  of  your 
most  eloquent  orators  to  America  to  show  us  our  sin,  and  to 
summon  us  to  the  work  of  its  extirpation.  You  have  faith- 
fully and  constantly  set  before  us  this  duty  in  your  journals, 
in  the  resolutions  of  religious  and  philanthropic  associations, 
and  even  in  the  documents  of  State.  A  humble  son  of 
America  may  show  the  gratitude  which  he  and  many  of  his 
people  truly  feel  for  this  faithfulness  on  your  part,  by  a 
reciprocal  service.  As  Mr.  Garrison  said  of  some  of  his 
warm  English  sympathizers,  "  Each  nation,  as  each  individual, 
has  its  own  cross  to  bear.  Your  duty  is  not  ours.  It  is 
ours  to  abolish  slavery.  It  is  yours  to  abolish  aristocracy, 
from  the  knight  to  the  throne."  Both  will  then  arrive, 
though  by  different  paths,  at  the  same  high  and  glorious 


316  LETTER   TO   THE   LONDON   WATCHMAN. 

table-land  of  universal  liberty,  equality,  and  fraternity  May 
our  motto  be  an  improvement  of  that  of  England,  and  in- 
stead of  the  selfish  Norman's  proud  French,  "  God  and  my 
right,"  may  it  be  the  better,  the  best  watchword,  "  God  and 
the  Right."  And  may  He  give  us  grace  and  strength  as  na- 
tions, as  well  as  individuals,  to  see  and  to  do  our  whole  duty. 
With  great  respect, 

I  remain,  truly  yours, 

G.  HAVEN. 
PARIS,  July  4,  1862. 


THE    STATE 


A    CHRISTIAN 
ERHOOD.* 


BROTH- 


"  LET  US  KEEP  THE  FEAST,  NOT  WITH  OLD  LEAVEN,  NEITHER  WITH  THE 
LEAVEN  OF  MALICE  AND  WICKEDNESS,  BUT  WITH  THE  UNLEAVENED 
BREAD  OF  SINCERITY  AND  TRUTH."  —  1  Cor.  V.  8.  • 

"ARISE;  SHINE."  —  ha.  Ix.  1. 

"  ALL  NATIONS  SHALL  CALL  YOU  BLESSED ;  FOR  YE  SHALL  BE  A  DE- 
LIGHTSOME LAND,  SAITH  THE  LORD  OF  HOSTS." Mai.  Hi.  12. 

HE  feast  referred  to  by  the  apostle  was  the  Jew- 
ish fast  and  feast,  commemorative  alike  of  the 
greatest  gloom  and  gladness.  It  is  celebrated  to- 
night and  to-morrow  all  over  Christendom,  by 
both  Jews  and  Christians,  —  the  solemn  sacrifice,  typical 
and  memorial,  of  the  blessed  Lord.  With  Paul,  we  see  the 
sacred  supper,  and  the  more  sacred  garden  that  eternally 
sanctify  this  day.  With  him  we  behold  the  consummations 
of  the  morrow,  —  from  the  midnight  betrayal  to  the  mid- 
night burial, — the  scorn  and  scourging,  the  mob,  from  pub- 
lican to  priest,  seething  with  ferocious  rage,  the  cross  of 
agony,  the  torn  and  bloody  hands,  and  feet,  and  head,  the 
blackened  heavens  and  rent  earth  !  How  they  overwhelm 

*  A  discourse  delivered  before  the  New  England  Conference  of  the 
Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  at  the  High  Street  Church,  Charlestown, 
Mass.,  on  the  occasion  of  the  annual  State  Fast,  April  2,  18G3. 

(317) 


318        THE   STATE  A   CHRISTIAN   BROTHERHOOD. 

us,  as  we  stand  on  this  distant  point  of  earth  and  time,  and 
look  upon  that  Form,  high  and  lifted  up  !  The  preliminary 
services  of  many  generations  also  rise  before  us ;  even  back 
to  that  Thursday  night,  when  there  was  wrought  out  the 
earthly  salvation  of  a  nation,  type  of  the  earthly  and  eter- 
nal salvation  of  the  world.  We  see  the  poor  slaves,  aroused 
by  the  screams  of  their  hitherto  haughty  neighbors,  hastily 
cooking  their  unraised  cakes,  and,  in  great  terror,  as  well 
as  great  joy,  fleeing  from  the  house  of  bondage.  The  light 
of  four  thousand  years  shines  solemnly  upon  us.  We  feel 
our  unity  with  the  emancipated  founders  of  the  memorial 
sacrifice  —  with  Him  in  whom,  in  "the  form  of  a  slave," 
it  was  divinely  consummated. 

But  our  responsibilities  lie  not  with  the  past.  We  gather 
from  it  incentives  to  duty  ;  but  the  Duties  themselves  are 
here  and 'now.  The  apostle  introduces  these  words  in  an 
earnest  expostulation  with  his  brethren  for  a  local,  Corin- 
thian sin.  So  we,  if  we  would  rightly  eat  the  unleavened 
bread  and  bitter  herbs  of  a  true  fast,  must  do  it  by  purging 
ourselves  of  the  old  leaven  of  malice  and  wickedness  within 
ourselves,  and  by  eating  the  unleavened  bread  of  sincerity 
and  truth,  in  respect  to  present  and  personal  obligations. 
The  cause  of  this  gathering  is  not  to  keep  the  passover,  not 
even  to  dwell  on  the  great  event,  which,  more  than  all  oth- 
ers, should  be  held  by  the  Church  in  perpetual  remembrance. 
It  is  by  invitation  of  this  Commonwealth,  through  its  elect 
head,  to  deplore  our  national  sins,  and  implore  national  for- 
giveness and  salvation.  We  may  with  especial  propriety, 
therefore,  consider  those  questions  of  morality  and  religion 
that  connect  themselves  with  our  civil  and  social  insti- 
tutions. 

In  what  respect  must  AVC,  as  citizens,  must  our  nation,  as 
a  nation,  purge  itself  of  the  old  leaven  of  malice  and  wick- 
edness ?  What  are  the  new  works,  sincere  and  truthful, 
demanded  of  us  by  the  God  and  Savior  of  nations  and  of 


THE   MISSION   OF   AMERICA.  319 

men  ?  May  God  help  us  to  speak  and  hear  in  the  enjoined 
spirit  of  sincerity,  the  eftixqlveta,  or  translucent  clear- 
ness of  spiritual  vision,  by  which,  and  by  which  alone,  we 
detect  the  perfect  proportions  and  exquisite  beauty  of  abso- 
lute truth.  If  the  green  scum  of  pride  cover  the  soul's 
vision,  if  the  muddy  elements  of  prejudice  float  in  it, 
if  the  violent  winds  of  passion  toss  it,  if,  as  is  often  the 
case,  all  these  combine,  a  dead  surface,  muddy  center,  and 
vehement  commotion,  then  we  shall  not  discern  the  truth. 
We  may  fancy  that  we  have  found  it,  but  it  will  be  a  luster- 
less,  crystalless  thing,  the  worthless  compound  of  our  own 
gross  natures.  We  shall  rage  on  those  who  do  discover  it, 
and  set  it  before  us.  Not  in  Christ's  day,  alone,  did  swine 
trample  pearls  under  their  feet,  and  turn  and  rend  those 
who  set  before  them  these  gifts  that  were  then  esteemed 
more  precious  than  diamonds.  The  human  heart,  here 
and  everywhere,  in  you  and  me,  tempts  to  this  same  act. 
It  is  a  swinish  heart,  full  of  swinish  conceit  and  appetite, 
that  the  grace  of  God  alone  can  purge  and  purify,  and 
uplift  to  the  style  and  manners  of  the  sky.  Let  us  im- 
plore for  ourselves  the  presence  of  His  Holy  Spirit,  which 
alone  can  give  us  the  eye  serene  and  the  transparent  me- 
dium by  which  we  may  see  the  very  thought  of  God  in 
all  its  perfection  of  beauty.  May  we  be  lifted  up  by  His 
side,  in  a  revelator's  vision,  and  behold  our  land  and  our- 
selves, as  His  eye  now  beholds  them.  Then  shall  we  gather 
from  the  thoughts  of  the  hour  both  increasing  purity  and 
increasing  knowledge.  The  truth  that  thus  shines  out  to 
our  humble-lidded  eye  will  itself  dissipate  any  remaining 
darkness  in  the  medium  of  vision.  We  shall  see  the  more 
clearly  from  seeing  it  the  more  clearly. 

It  is  a  favorite  conceit  with  all  famous  peoples  that  they 
have  a  mission.  "  For  some  especial  purpose  God  has 
raised  them  up,"  they  say,  forgetting  that  this  purpose  may 
be,  in  their  case,  as  it  was  in  Pharaoh's,  to  show  forth  His 


320        THE    STATE  A  CHRISTIAN-  BROTHERHOOD. 

power  and  His  wrath.  They  forget  that  it  is  the  simple, 
universal,  every-day  mission  of  doing1  justly,  loving  mercy, 
and  walking  humbly  before  God,  and  that  it  is  the  national, 
as  well  as  private,  observance  of  those  probationary  tests 
that  shall  fit  us  for,  and  insure  us  admission  to,  the  citizen- 
ship of  the  heavenly  nation.  But  worldly  people  dream 
that  they  have  some  great  earthly  thing  to  "do,  and  cry  out 
with  Pharisaic  agony  of  conceit,  How  are  we  straitened  till 
it  be  accomplished  !  So  has  it  always  been.  Egypt,  un- 
doubtedly, fancied  that  she  had  a  mission,  and,  looking  on 
her  pyramids,  obelisks,  sphinxes,  and  temples,  dreamed  that 
the  problems  of  the  universe  were  to  find  solution  only  in 
her.  So,  evidently,  felt  Nebuchadnezzar  and  the  powers  of 
Nineveh  and  Babylon.  So  did  Athens,  and  Turkey,  and 
Venice,  and  mediaeval  Italy.  So  did  Spain  and  France. 
So,  to-day,  do  England  and  America. 

It  will  be  noticed  that  only  as  a  people  rise  to  wealth 
and  power  do  they  begin  to  assume  these  airs,  and  when 
that  wealth  and  power  leave  them,  much,  if  not  all,  the 
sense  of  their  peculiar  mission  departs  also.  Another  fact 
is  also  noticeable.  The  institutions  under  which  they  have 
happened  to  flourish  receive  all  the  glory  of  their  success 
and  the  ardor  of  their  propagation.  Athens  thought  her 
style  of  a  slave  democracy  the  world's  panacea.  Sparta 
was  certain  that  her  fashion  of  a  slave  oligarchy  was  the 
only  remedy.  Rome  would  Romanize  everything.  So  is  it 
now.  The  British  fancy  that  their  Constitution  is  the  sole 
cause  of  their  prosperity,  and  that,  could  it  be  applied  to 
all  the  weak  bodies  politic  of  Europe,  it  would  effect  an 
instant  cure  ;  while  the  truth  is,  her  Constitution,  for  five 
hundred  years,  never  made  her  great.  Protestantism  and 
the  discovery  of  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope  are  the  causes 
of  her  wealth,  and  her  wealth  the  cause  of  her  arrogant 
self-esteem. 

We  are  treading  in  the  same  path.     Is  it  a  divine  one,  or 


THE   MISSION   OF   AMERICA.  321 

is  it  but  the  fantasy  of  a  heated  vanity  ?  One  is  constrained 
to  feel  that  much  of  it  is  the  laudation  with  which  success 
crowns  her  votaries.  She  delights  to  wreathe  the  laurels 
of  virtue  with  those  of  victory.  Yet  there  is  a  basis  for 
this  universal  sentiment.  •  It  is  this.  All  nations,  at  their 
beginning-,  or  at  the  hour  of  their  especial  development, 
measurably  recognize  the  equal  rights  of  all.  The  Arab 
and  Turk,  flying  with  the  crescent,  symbol  of  their  bloody 
cimeter,  across  three  continents,  offered  equal  privileges  to 
every  soldier.  The  meanest  serf  was  one  with  the  haughti- 
est bashaw  before  God  and  His  prophet.  A  like  sense  of 
equality  won  Marathon  and  Salamis,  and  founded  the  Gre- 
cian power.  Home's  greatest  victories  were  when  she  was 
a  republic.  Gibbon  begins  her  decline  with  her  Caesars. 
Venice,  Holland,  arid  republican  France,  all  felt  this  inspi- 
ration sweeping  them  on  to  power.  Yet  these  have  per- 
ished. They  are  broken  in  pieces  as  a  potter's  vessel.  They 
departed  from  God  and  God  from  them.  It  would  seem  as 
if  nations  would  be  taught  by  their  fate.  But  nations,  like 
individuals,  are  but  slightly  impressed  with  another's  expe- 
rience. England  is  traveling  the  same  path.  In  the  day 
of  her  wealth  and  power-  she  is  doing  precisely  what  Venice, 
Greece,  and  Rome  did  in  theirs.  She  tramples  on  the  rights 
of  her  despised  people,  from  whom  alone  is  her  real  life. 
Unless  she  is  converted,  she  will  follow  her  proud  predeces- 
sors to  their  eternal  grave. 

What  is  our  mission  ?  It  is  of  precisely  the  same  char- 
acter as  theirs,  and  as  all  men's — to  fear  God  and  keep  His 
commandments.  Being  the  latest  birth  of  time,  the  princi- 
ples on  which  and  of  which  we  must  live  are  so  clearly  rec- 
ognized, that  they  have  found  expression  in  our  organic  law. 
They  are  twofold. 

First.  Universal  toleration  of  religion,  with  the  acknowl- 
edged supremacy  of  Christianity. 

Second.     The  universal  equality  and  fraternity  of  man. 
21 


322         THE    STATE  A  CHRISTIAN   BROTHERHOOD. 

I.  We  may  properly  consider,  as  preliminary  to  the  first 
topic,  the  marked  difference  between  this  idea  and  those 
which  have  been  followed  by  previous  nations.  Religion 
has  always  been  recognized  as  the  supreme  idea  of  the 
State.  In  Israel  orthodoxy  and  obedience  were  identical ; 
so  were  heterodoxy  and  treason.  When  Christianity  became 
potent  in  the  Romam  empire,  it  ascended  the  throne  as  the 
supreme  object  of  reverence.  It  supplanted  heathenism, 
which,  for  four  centuries,  had  attacked  it  with  instinctive 
and  increasing  ferocity.  Not  without  earthly  wisdom  did 
Herod  search,  for  his  rival  to  the  throne  of  David  among  the 
babes  of  Bethlehem.  Not  without  the  bloody  instincts  of 
self-preservation  did  he  slay  the  whole,  that  he  might  the 
One.  He  knew  that  the  scepter  of  earthly  sovereignty  was 
grasped  by  the  appointed  Heir  of  all  things.  He  saw  that 
his  central  and  sacred  throne  would  be  the  first  that  He 
would  ascend.  Every  pagan  emperor  acted  with  like  worldly 
wisdom.  The  refusal  to  worship  their  dead  predecessor  was 
a  refusal  to  acknowledge  their  own  legitimacy.  If  unhin- 
dered by  their  clemency  or  carelessness,  it  must  result  in 
the  overthrow  of  their  dynasty.  Could  Napoleon  allow 
citizens  of  France,  or  Victoria  those  of  England,  to  openly 
acknowledge  a  Bourbon  or  a  Stuart  as  their  sovereign  ? 
Then  they  could  a  president,  and  where  are  they  and  theirs  ? 
The  same  instinct  of  self-preservation  worked  alike  in  rulers 
as  sanguinary  as  Nero,  as  gross  as  Caligula,  as  states- 
man-like as  Trajan,  as  clement  as  Marcus  Aurelius,  as  de- 
votional as  Pius  Antoninus.  They  all,  with  one  accord,  sought 
to  uproot  the  pestiferous  treason — treason  against  the  gods, 
and,  therefore,  against  the  State.  In  the  triumph  of  Chris- 
tianity the  same  law  obtained.  It  was  Christianity,  not 
Constantino,  that  overthrew  Paganism  at  the  Pons  Milvius. 
Under  its  inspiration,  he  slays  the  gods  in  the  person  of  his 
rival  Maxentius.  Not  without  significance,  too,  may  we 
not  say,  not  without  Providence,  did  this  heathen  bring  into 


THE   MISSION   OF  AMERICA.  323 

the  conflict  the  holy  vessels  of  the  Hebrew  service  —  three 
hundred  years  before,  with  their  nation,  brought  captive  to 
Rome.  As  Jew  arid  pagan  united  in  killing  Christ  because 
He  assumed  to  be  their  king,  so  they  again,  and  for  the 
last  time,  appear  together  to  prevent  His  elevation  to  the 
throne  of  earthly  dominion.  The  apostate  Church  and  apos- 
tate world  are  confederate  against  the  Lord's  Anointed.  It 
is  in  vain.  The  ark  that  once  embodied  the  rejecting  and 
rejected  Church,  and  the  golden  candlestick  that  suggested 
its  vanished  light,  follow  the  idolatrous  Caesar,  the  incar- 
nation of  pagan  supremacy,  to  the  bed  of  the  Tiber,  while 
the  Cross,  waving  in  the  skies,  leads  the  triumphing  eagles 
of  the  Christian  Ceesar  to  the  throne  of  the  world. 

From  that  hour  till  the  organization  of  the  American  gov- 
ernment, Christianity  had  allowed  no  real  toleration  to  hos- 
tile or  indifferent  faiths.  However  Christless  it  was,  it  yet 
assumed  an  undivided  sovereignty.  Whatever  civil  wars  it 
had  in  itself,  those  wars  never  questioned  its  supremacy  in 
the  affairs  of  state.  Latin  Occidentalism  fought  for  centu- 
ries with  Greek  Orientalism  for  the  control  of  the  empire. 
Protestantism,  in  many  preliminary  skirmishes,  and  for  gen- 
erations after  the  Reformation  dawned,  contended  mightily 
with  Romanism  ;  but  none  of  these  forms  of  faith  ever 
dreamed  that  they  were  contending  for  toleration.  They 
were  striving  for  the  mastery.  Their  success  involved  the 
utter  overthrow  of  their  rival.  Such  were  the  wars  of  Ger- 
many and  England  for  two  hundred  years.  As  soon  as  any 
especial  type  of  faith  prevailed,  it  demanded  the  complete 
obedience  of  its  foes.  Presbyterianism  was  as  zealous  for 
the  rack  and  thumb-screw  against  Episcopacy,  as  both  against 
Papacy.  Janet's  stool,  hurled  against  the  robed  and  prayer- 
reading  Churchman  in  John  Knox's  kirk,  was  but  a  symbol 
of  the  national  feeling.  Cromwell  was  as  severe  against 
the  liturgists  as  Charles  II.  against  non-conformity.  The 
reason  why  the  true  faith  outlived  these  persecutions  was, 


324        THE   STATE   A  CHRISTIAN   BROTHERHOOD. 

because  it  was  the  true  faith.  Had  it  been  false  utterly, 
as  were  the  pagan  systems,  it  would  have  died  and 
made  no  sign.  Gonstantine  was  as  rigid  in  requiring1  sub- 
jection to  his  religion  as  Diocletian,  just  before  him,  had 
been.  But  Diocletian  struggled  to  slay  the  divine  truth, 
and  hence  rightfully  goes  down  to  history  as  a  persecutor  ; 
Constantine,  to  extirpate  a  false,  though  famous,  faith,  and 
its  advocates  either  yielded  an  outward  conformity,  because 
it  gave  them  no  inward  support  in  their  extremity,  or  else, 
resisting  and  perishing,  have  been  accounted,  by  their 
victors  and  their  posterity  to  this  day,  as  worthy  of  death 
and  infamy. 

It  is  well  to  notice  here  the  charge  that  is  often  laid  against 
our  Puritan,  not  Pilgrim,  fathers,  for  the  Plymouth  Pilgrims 
learned  toleration  in  their  exile,  and  were  the  first  to  prac- 
tice it  in  the  world.  But  the  Puritans  of  Massachusetts 
Bay  had  suffered  less  and  learned  less.  They  simply  con- 
formed to  this,  till  then,  universal  principle.  They  revolted 
from  the  ritualistic  forms  of  worship,  and  for  almost  a  hun- 
dred years  had  striven  with  it  for  the  mastery  of  England. 
They  had  been  defeated.  They  must  conform  or  fly.  Had 
they  succeeded,  their  rivals  must  have  done  likewise.  They 
did  so  obey  or  fly  in  the  reign  of  Cromwell.  Defeated  they 
retreated  to  America.  No  wiser  than  their  generation,  than 
all  previous  generations,  they  made  their  creed  the  supreme 
law  of  the  land.  Any  shade  of  difference  was,  so'  far  forth, 
treason  —  any  avowal  thereof  must  be  punished  as  rigidly 
as  theft  or  murder  ;  more  rigidly,  for  these  concerned  but 
the  estates  or  bodily  lives  of  their  people — that,  if  allowed, 
imperiled  their  eternal  salvation.  The  idea  of  toleration 
found  occasional  expression,  but  it  was  rather  the  dream  of 
a  fanciful  thinker  than  the  resolute  opinion  of  a  sturdy  be- 
liever. Lord  Bacon  held  to  it,  but  Lord  Bacon  was  hardly 
thought  to  be  a  wise  master-builder  in  ecclesiastical  matters. 

The  first  man  who  introduced  it  formally  into  the  consti- 


THE   MISSION   OF   AMERICA.  325 

tution  of  human  government,  grew  to  the  height  of  his 
great  argument  in  the  prolific  soil  of  Puritan  politics.  Roger 
Williams  "  saw  the  light  and  hailed  it  in  his  joy,"  when, 
seeking  deliverance  from  the  trammels  of  a  human  creed,  he 
found  himself  restrained  by  the  bolts  and  bars  of  human 
laws.  It  was  the  conflict  of  conscience  with  conscience 
that  struck  out  the  spark  of  the  inviolable  sanctity  of  con- 
science, which  has  become  the  peculiar  light  and  glory  of 
America.  It  is  not  unlikely  that  had  he  been  allowed  a 
measure  of  liberty  in  prophesying,  he  would  have  been  con- 
tented with  his  chains.  He  certainly  shows  the  inconsis- 
tency which  every  strong  nature  somewhere  reveals,  in  that, 
while  contending  for  the  utmost  liberty  of  conscience  in  the 
State,  he  should  exclude  from  the  Church  all  who  refused 
compliance  with  a  mere  form.  Had  his  colony  been  as  great 
and  prosperous  'as  its  neighbors,  it  might  have  returned  to 
their  system.  To  expel  unimmersed  Christians  from  the 
Church  is  as  much  greater  violation  of  human  rights  than 
to  expel  non-conformists  and  non-professors  from  the  State, 
as  the  Church  itself  is  greater  than  the  State. 

Less  catholic  was  the  Catholicism  of  Maryland.  Like 
that  of  Rhode  Island,  it  was  constrained  by  events.  Unlike 
that,  it  was  not  developed  from  principle.  James  would 
establish  a  colony.  He  wished  that  it  should  be  Papal.  His 
power  was  not  equal  to  his  desires.  A  Prostestant  Parlia- 
ment was  hostile.  He  secured  his  ends  only  by  making 
league  with  the  most  ultra  of  his  opponents  ;  and  on  the 
basis  of  perfect  toleration  the  most  extreme  of  Papists  and 
Protestants  outwardly,  not  inwardly,  united.  Maryland 
was  the  fruit  of  the  strange  marriage  ;  —  an  unnatural 
child,  she  reveals  the  unmingling  contraries  of  her  origin, 
even  to  this  day. 

The  American  idea,  therefore,  of  the  equality  of  all 
Churches  and  Christians  before  the  law  is  of  the  latest  origin. 
It  is  also  to-day  as  purely  an  American  institution  as  the 


326        THE    STATE   A   CHRISTIAN   BROTHERHOOD. 

civil  equality  of  the  people.  There  are  but  few  religious 
bodies  and  no  Christian  governments  elsewhere  that  yet 
desire  such  a  boon.  They  are  as  much  afraid  of  spiritual, 
as  of  social  and  civil  democracy. 

The  Protestants  of  France  accept  subsidies  from  the  State, 
and  submit  to  the  restraints  with  which  it  pays  for  its  aid. 
M.  Monod,  one  of  the  most  able  of  the  Evangelical  preach- 
ers of  Paris,  told  me,  with  especial  and  unconscious  pride, 
of  their  success  in  building  up  congregations  to  the  standard 
required  before  they  could  draw  on  the  government  for  the 
support  of  a  pastor,  and  of  the  various  increments  accord- 
ing to  which  that  aid  was  graded.  He  did  not  seem  to  feel 
the  ignominy  of  receiving  his  bread  from  such  a  hand  as 
Louis  Napoleon's — a  professed  Papist  —  a  real  Infidel.  lie 
did  not  feel  the  further  degradation,  as  it  would  seem  to  an 
Englishman  even,  for  they  have  grown  to  that  stature,  of 
being  forbidden  by  his  patron  from  saying  anything  contro- 
versially against  the  Papists.  Napoleon  keeps  up  the  show 
of  impartiality  by  requiring  like  pledges  of  the  Papal  priests. 
It  is  one  of  the  shrewd  dodges  of  that  arch  hypocrite,  by 
which  he  apparently  serves  the  cause  of  liberty,  and  really 
that  of  slavery.  With  Paris,  thoroughly,  openly,  universally 
Catholic,  there  is  as  little  need  of  the  priests  declaiming 
against  Protestantism  as  in  the  days  of  Louis  XIV.  ;  while 
the  possibility  of  Protestants  converting  those  whose  errors 
of  doctrine  they  are  not  allowed  to  oppose,  would  be  as 
hopeful  as  the  like  silence  imposed  by  the  Sanhedrim  on 
Peter  and  John,  had  they  submitted  to  that  decree  of  the 
State,  would  have  been  in  the  conversion  of  the  Jews.  To 
carry  out  his  crafty  trickery,  he  puts  a  policeman  in  every 
church  to  see  that  it  does  not  violate  this  law,  and  all 
—  whether  native  or  foreign,  Wesleyan  or  American  —  are 
thus  preserved  from  the  errors  of  free  speech,  and  bold  de- 
nunciation of  dominant  apostasy.  What  Monod  and  his 
friends  ought  to  do,  would  be  to  cast  the  gold  of  the  empe- 


THE   MISSION  OF  AMERICA.  327 

ror  at  his  feet,  saying,  "  Thy  money  perish  with  thee," 
and,  departing  from  his  presence,  proclaim  the  whole  truth 
as  it  is  in  Jesus.  He  would  undoubtedly  make  a  vigorous 
attempt  to  suppress  their  liberty,  but  they  would  grow  with 
persecutions.  The  days  of  St.  Bartholomew  are  passed. 
He  would  be  constrained  to  concede  what  they  piously  and 
persistently  demanded.  But  they  content  themselves  with 
faithfully  laboring  in  the  imperial  fetters,  hoping  for  some 
movement  of  Providence  that  shall  set  them  at  liberty. 

Like,  though  less  servile,  are  the  dissenters  of  Britain. 
The  universal  tax  to  support  the  Establishment  is  quietly 
submitted  to  by  millionfe  of  anti-Churchmen.  If  there  were 
but  a  uniform  refusal  to  pay  it,  it  would  soon  be  swept 
away.  A  single  item  illustrates  the  power  of  this  tithe. 
In  the  Epworth  Church,  where  Samuel  Wesley  was  rector, 
a  son  of  a  Lord,  Rev.  and  Hon.  Charles  Dundas,  is  the  pres- 
ent incumbent.  His  congregation,  on  a  beautiful  June  Sab- 
bath, was  not  over  fifty  ;  less  than  twenty  staid  to  the 
sacrament.  In  the  village  around  the  church  are,  at  least, 
three  churches  or  chapels  of  Wesleyans,  Independents,  and 
others.  Yet  the  income  of  the  rector  is  over  eleven  hun- 
dred pounds,  or  nearly  six  thousand  dollars.  Four  fifths  of 
this  is  drawn  from  the  poor  neighbors  who  never  attend  his 
preaching.  This  is  a  poor  country  parish,  and  bears  no 
comparison  to  the  enormous  wealth  of  some  of  the  clerical 
estates.  Walking  on  the  uplands  near  Shakspeare's  cliff 
at  Dover,  I  asked  a  peasant  who  owned  the  land  about  me. 
"  The  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,"  he  replied.  Yet  this 
was  twenty-five  miles  from  Canterbury,  and  a  hundred  from 
his  real  residence,  which  is  in  London. 

Such  a  system,  of  course,  prevents  real  toleration.  Lib- 
erty of  conscience  is  never  perfect  where  one  is  compelled 
to  pay  for  the  support  of  a  religion  he  does  not  approve. 
Nor  is  the  liberty  of  the  National  Church  itself  more  than  a 
name,  when  politicians,  like  Palmerston,  appoint  their  bish- 


328         THE    STATE   A  CHRISTIAN   BROTHERHOOD. 

ops  and  station  their  preachers.  But  the  non-conforming 
mind,  as  a  whole,  is  not  ripe  for  a  perfect  independency. 
The  Free  Church  of  Scotland,  though  it  spurns  the  aid  of  a 
patronizing  State,  would  willingly  receive  it,  if  the  State 
would  not  interfere  with  its  operations.  Were  that  Church 
strong  enough  to  bring  Scotland  over  to  its  view,  it  would 
dictate  terms,  under  threat  of  dissolving  the  British  Union  ; 
would  become  the  State  Church,  and  take  the  moneys  of 
the  government  for  the  support  of  its  preachers,  while  it 
maintained  its  superiority  over  the  State,  and  did  not  —  as 
the  National  Kirk  meekly  does  —  place  the  sovereign  or 
her  lordly  representative  in  a  royal  gallery,  far  above  the 
moderator,  the  real  head  of  the  Church. 

Like  ideas  and  usages  prevail  in  Protestant  Germany. 
In  fine,  everywhere  but  here,  is  there  more  or  less  of  a  sub- 
jection of  the  Church  to  the  State,  whereby  the  Church  re- 
ceives its  stipends  and  surrenders  her  sovereignty.  The  Ro- 
man States  are  the  only  exception.  There  the  Church  is  the 
State,  as  it  was  in  the  original  Jewish  nation.  When  one 
sees  in  Rome  officials,  judge,  policeman,  custom-house  offi- 
cer, all,  receiving  their  salaries  from  a  clergyman,  whose 
council  of  state  are  also  clergymen,  he  has  a  lively  concep- 
tion of  Palestine  under  Samuel,  and  the  high  priests  of  a 
later  period.  Even  their  kings  were  but  the  collectors  and 
disbursers  of  the  Church  tariffs  —  never  the  supreme  head 
of  the  Church,  as  in  England. 

The  Church  and  the  State  have  thus  experienced  all  the 
evils  of  alternate  authority.  Now  the  Church  rules  the 
State,  and  now  the  State  the  Church.  Here,  for  the  first 
time,  they  agree  to  dissolve  partnership.  They  who  have 
been  united  for  good  or  evil,  for  better  or  worse,  in  life  and 
in  death,  in  all  previous  ages  and  races,  who  have  never 
conceived  a  dissolution  possible,  have  agreed  to  make  the 
experiment.  The  collisions  of  conscience  have  compelled 
this  —  not  the  advance  of  political  science.  Had  the  Con- 


THE   MISSION    OF   AMERICA.  329 

science  been  a  unit,  the  State  would  have  remained  its  ser- 
vant. Dissensions  in  the  Church  made  statesmen  of  indif- 
ferent conscience  —  as  Jefferson  and  Franklin — see  that  the 
independence  of  each  high  contracting  party  was  better  for 
both.*  Others,  more  conscientious,  adopted  their  views, 
and  thus  was  launched  the  great  national  idea.  It  is  new 
in  history,  and  new  in  two  important  respects  to  ourselves. 

1 .  It  has  not  been  universal  with  us  till  the  previous  gen- 
eration.    But  two  or  three  colonies  were  without  an  estab- 
lished Church  at  the  beginning  of  our  national  existence. 

2.  A  more  important  consideration  is,  that  this  toleration 
had  never  been  extended  among  the  most  extremely  liberal 
commonwealths,  so  as  to  place  all  faiths  and  non-faiths  on 
the  same  basis  as  Christianity.     The  colony  of  Roger  Wil- 
liams was  a  Baptist  colony,  with  all  its  toleration  :  so  was 
Penn's  a  Quaker.     Both  were  Christian.     The  deposition  of 
Christianity  from  the  supreme  seat  is  an  act  almost  of  our 
day.      It  is    not   yet   everywhere    formally    accomplished, 
though  the  force  of  the  current  sweeps  thither. 

This  idea  seems  to  us  eminently  practical.  It  is  not  so 
necessarily.  It  has  its  most  grave  and  perplexing  prob- 
lems. Like  all  things  human,  it  is  defective  and  mortal. 
It  will  have  its  day,  and  cease  to  be.  But  we  live  in  the 
hour  of  its  supremacy.  We  are  required  to  make  full  proof 
of  the  ministry  we  have  received  of  the  Lord  Jesus  during 
its  dominion.  We  ought  carefully  to  consider,  then,  what 
are  the  dangerous  tendencies  of  such  a  system,  and  what 
are  the  duties  of  the  ministry  in  view  of  these  tendencies. 

The  greatest  peril  of  such  a  disunion  is,  that  the  State 
ceases  to  recognize  Christ  as  its  Head.  We  may  be  so 
tolerant  as  to  be  intolerant  of  Christianity.  We  may  al- 
low such  liberty  as  to  reject  the  authority  of  the  Author 
of  all  our  liberties.  We  are  attempting  to  build  up  and 
make  mighty  in  the  earth  a  nation  that  is  Christian  in  reality, 

*  Mill  on  Liberty,  p.  20. 


330        THE    STATE  A   CHRISTIAN   BROTHERHOOD. 

and  not  in  name.  How  difficult,  if  not  impossible,  such  a 
work  is,  can  only  be  seen  by  comparing  it  with  every  other 
great  nation  in  history.  The  four  kingdoms  that  Daniel  de- 
scribed to  Nebuchadnezzar  were  pagan  powers,  crushed  by 
the  stone  cut  from  the  eternal  mountain.  The  governments 
since  the  days  of  Constantino  have  been  imperfect  portions 
of  that  kingdom  that  is  to  fill  the  whole  earth.  This  divine 
kingdom  is  going  on  to  its  completion,  and  every  power  to 
whom  God  giveth  prominence  must  consider  itself  as  one 
of  its  component  parts. 

The  successive  rise  of  these  Christian  empires  has  been 
because  of  their  partial  allegiance  to  Christ  —  their  succes- 
sive fall,  because  of  their  subsequent  revolt  from  Him.  The 
present  hour  beholds  four  great  powers  influencing  the 
world  —  England,  France,  Russia,  and  the  United  States. 
Each  of  the  others  is  the  representative  of  a  grand  division 
of  the  Christian  Church.  We  profess  not  to  represent  the 
Christian  Church  in  any  of  these  great  divisions.  Further 
than  this,  we  profess  not  to  represent  Christianity  itself. 
The  first  position  is  right.  The  second  is  wrong.  It  is 
proper  for  us  to  say  we  are  not  a  Papist  or  Protestant  nation. 
It  is  proper  to  amply  protect  Jew,  Mussulman,  Pagan,  and 
Infidel,  in  his  worship  or  non-worship  ;  but  it  is  not  proper 
to  refuse  to  recognize  Christ  as  our  national  Head.  It  is 
not  right  to  carefully  abstain,  in  every  presidential  message 
and  proclamation  of  fasting  or  thanksgiving,  from  mention- 
ing the  name  of  the  Savior  of  the  world.  Such  liberality  is 
licentiousness.  Such  fastidiousness  is  fatal.  We  aspire  to 
the  leadership  of  the  world.  But  it  must  be  only  as  the 
lieutenant  of  Christ.  If  we  hope  to  thrust  ourselves  into 
the  front  rank  of  the  race,  at  this  period  of  the  world's  his- 
tory, and  so  near  the  millennial  reign,  without  any  especial 
cognizance  of  Him  by  whom  are  all  things,  and  for  whom* 
are  all  things,  we  shall  find  that  we  have  made  a  dreadful 
mistake.  We  shall  surely  and  most  suddenly  be  ground  to 


THE   MISSION   OF  AMERICA.  331 

< 

powder  under  the  steady  and  rapid  advance  of  that  divine 
Stone.  We  shall  be  as  though  we  had  never  been.  God 
would  make  small  account  of  us,  no  matter  how  large  we 
made  of  ourselves,  did  we  thus  trifle  with  His  decree,  made 
before  the  world  was,  and  confirmed  often  since  man  began 
his  career  :  "  Ask  of  Me  and  I  will  give  Thee  the  heathen 
for  Thine  inheritance,  and  the  uttermost  parts  of  the  earth 
for  Thy  possession."  Christ  has  asked,  has  earned  the  gift. 
It  shall  be  given.  Who  art  thou,  Goliath  of  America,  that 
dares  to  talk  about  establishing  a  kingdom  with  no  Christ 
in  it,  or  with  Christ  put  on  a  level  with  Mahomet  or  Buddh, 
Paine  or  Parker  ?  "  The  nation  and  kingdom  that  will  not 
serve  Thee  shall  perish.  Yea,  those  nations  shall  be  utterly 
wasted."  It  is  as  true  now  as  in  the  days  of  pagan  Nero  ; 
as  true  here  as  in  Mohammedan  Turkey.  You  may  say  we 
are  Christian.  So  we  might  be  if  the  majority  governed ; 
but  this  is  a  case  where  the  minority  govern  ;  and  no  Pres- 
ident dares  acknowledge  Christianity  to  be  the  religion  of 
this  nation.  It  may  offend  some  unchristian  conscience. 
The  call  to  prayer  and  fasting  that  appears  in  to-day's 
papers  confirms  the  statement.  There  is  no  Christ  in  it. 
It  is  contrary  to  our  cardinal  principle.  If  this  is  to  be 
the  doctrine  of  America,  she  will  never  live  out  half  her 
days.  The  attempt  now  being  made  to  introduce  into  the 
Constitution  the  confession  of  national  faith  in  God  and 
Christ  ought  to  be  pressed  forward.  The  blessing  of  God 
will  attend  its  success. 

Already  two  great  sores  have  broken  out  upon  us  in  con- 
sequence of  this  latitudinarianism  —  one,  the  irreligious 
character  of  many  of  our  public  men,  and  of  the  masses  of 
the  people  ;  the  other,  false  notions  as  to  the  minister's 
relation  to  politics  or  the  affairs  of  State. 

1.  It  is  a  rare  thing  to  see  a  man  in  the  presidential  seat 
who  is  a  professed  Christian.  I  am  not  aware  that  such 
an  one  has  ever  been  elected  to  that  chair.  It  is  prob- 


332        THE    STATE  A  CHRISTIAN   BROTHERHOOD. 

able  that  not  one  of  them  was  a  member  of  an  Evangelical 
Church.  This  evil  is  not  cured  yet.  We  have  had  moral 
men,  and  those  who  were  far  otherwise.  But  a  man  that 
was  willing  to  avow  himself  a  Christian,  that  was  con- 
nected with  a  Christian  church,  and  received  its  sacraments, 
is  yet  a  most  rare  novelty  there.  The  same  is  true  of  the 
majority  of  our  high  officials.  Whatever  the  party  in  power, 
that  fact  remains  unaltered.  The  representatives  of  the 
cause  of  liberty  are  as  unwilling  to  personally  profess  Christ 
as  are  those  of  the  cause  of  slavery.  This  is  strikingly 
contrary  to  the  managers  of  nations  abroad.  Whatever 
defects  they  have,  —  and  they  are  many, — however  bitterly 
they  oppose  the  rights  of  the  people,  they  recognize  the 
rights  of  Christ.  They  are  professors  of  faith  in  Him,  and 
trust  to  Him  alone  for  salvation.  The  prominence  that  they 
thus  give  to  personal  Christian  faith  is  not  without  marked 
benefits.  It  recognizes  the  necessity  of  that  faith.  It  re- 
bukes infidelity.  It  popularizes  religion.  We  may  com- 
plain of  the  feeble  fruit  of  such  a  divine  seed,  as  we  see 
their  adhesion  to  hoary  errors  and  violent  perverting  of  jus- 
tice ;  but  we  forget  that  we,  as  a  people,  have  been,  and, 
in  a  degree,  are  even  now,  guilty  of  like  devotion  to  hideous 
sins.  Their  corrupt  sentiments  and  unchristian  conduct  are 
not  Christianity,  and  multitudes  who  are  affected  by  the 
fashion  of  the  great  men  more  than  by  their  sins,  may  thus 
be  led  to  a  simple  and  saving  knowledge  of  Christ.  Cer- 
tainly the  prevalence  of  a  lack  of  Christian  faith,  on  the 
part  of  our  representative  men,  reproduces  this  irrcligion  in 
a  fearfully  increasing  ratio  as  we  move  through  the  masses 
of  society.  The  great  majority  of  Americans  have  no  re- 
ligion. They  are  worse  than  the  worst  heathen,  for  these 
do  revere  and  worship  something  higher  than  themselves. 
Even  in  New  England,  the  majority,  probably,  of  most 
towns  have  no  personal  faith  in  Jesus  Christ  as  their  Savior. 
So  fearfully  does  this  irreligion  in  high  places  reveal  itself 
in  the  low. 


THE   MISSION   OF   AMERICA.  333 

In  Europe  the  poorest  classes  are  very  generally  religious. 
However  low  the  tone  of  their  piety,  —  however  ignorant 
all,  and  immoral  many  may  be,  —  there  is  in  the  masses  a 
knowledge  of  Jesus  as  the  only  Redeemer,  the  conscious- 
ness of  the  need  of  His  blood  for  their  salvation,  a  will- 
ingness to  confess  such  a  need,  and,  perhaps,  according  to 
the  light  they  have,  through  the  half-teachings  of  their 
spiritual  guides,  as  strict  a  conformity  to  the  demands  of 
their  faith  as  with  us.  All  this  is  directly  contrary  to  our 
experience.  How  few  attend  our  Sunday  services !  When 
there,  how  impious  their  bearing  —  sitting  and  staring 
through  the  prayers  as  coolly  as  at  a  play  —  coming  to 
Sunday  evening  meetings  in  large  numbers,  but  with  no 
thought  of  worship  —  with  no  idea  that  they  are  expected 
to  feel  a  sentiment  of  godly  fear,  or  sorrow,  or  faith,  — > 
while  myriads  never  darken  the  doors  of  a  church,  and 
spend  the  Sabbath  as  thoughtlessly  as  they  do  a  holiday  ! 
These  are  solemn,  they  are  dreadful  truths. 

They  may  well  make  us  pause  in  our  rejoicings  over  the 
perfect  equality  of  all  religions.  They  show  us  that  we 
may  have  gone  further  than  the  scriptural  warrant,  than  the 
liberty  that  is  in  Christ  Jesus.  I  do  not  read  that  the 
heavenly  worlds  put  atheism,  diabolism,  and  every  other  foe 
of  God,  on  a  footing  with  God  Himself.  If  they  did,  hell 
and  paradise  would  be  identical,  and  Satan  be  as  much  pro- 
tected in  his  idea  of  worship  as  Michael  in  his.  Nay,  more. 
The  synagogue  of  Satan  would  be  on  a  perfect  level  with 
that  of  Christ,  and  the  impartial  and  tolerant  Governor  of 
the  universe  would  represent  the  two  parties  by  being  Him- 
self without  any  religion  whatever,  as  are  our  public  schools 
—  the  neutral  point  where  the  two  contraries  become  a 
zero.  This  idea  of  God,  which.  Emerson  sets  forth  in  some 
of  his  most  nervous  infidelity,  is  but  the  fitting  expression  of 
our  popular  religious  principle :  — 


334         THE   STATE   A   CHRISTIAN   BROTHERHOOD. 

"There  unlike  things  are  like; 
There  good  and  ill, 
And  joy  and  moan, 
Melt  into  one." 

2.  But  this  is  not  its  only  'defect.  It  is  not  negative  ex- 
clusively. No  error  is.  It  is  eminently  active,  and  one  of 
its  activities  is,  that  religion  and  the  State  being  divorced, 
ministers,  the  teachers  and  representatives  of  true  religion, 
must  not  meddle  with  politics  or  the  affairs  of  State.  "They 
don't  belong  to  your  parish/'  say  the  self-elected  leaders 
of  civil  affairs.  "  Let  us  alone.  What  have  we  to  do  with 
thee,  thou  minister  of  Jesus,  the  Son  of  David  ?  Hast  thou 
come  to  torment  us  before  our  time  ?  "  And  they  do  not 
cry  out  thus,  cowering  and  trembling  as  did  most  of  their 
kindred  of  old,  but  with  the  effrontery  of  the  same  kindred 
when  they  baffled  the  ministers  of  Christ  at  the  foot  of  the 
mount  of  transfiguration. 

"  You  attend  to  the  Church,  and  we  will  attend  to  the 
State."  It  is  much  as  if  one  should  shut  you  up  in  a  spa- 
cious house,  which  he  had  no  desire  to  enter,  and  say, 
"  Stay  thou  there  while  I  roam  at  will  through  all  the  adja- 
cent fields,  and  streets,  and  homes.  I  have  all  out  of  doors 
to  myself,  and  all  in  doors  but  that  one  habitation."  In 
due  time  such  a  haughty  doorkeeper  to  the  house  of  God 
goes  a  little  further.  He  not  only  forbids  your  leaving  your 
palace,  which  he  thus  makes  a  prison,  but  he  forbids  your 
speaking,  when  there,  on  matters  and  things  outside  of  your 
walls.  If  he  deigns  to  visit  you,  you  must  not  dare  to  give 
him  advice  as  to  how  he  shall  have  his  conversation  in  this 
world.  You  must  not  presume  to  discourse  upon  the  prin- 
ciples involved  in  his  profession  and  career.  You  are  de- 
basing your  profession,  if  you  do.  You  are  intruding  on 
domains  forbidden  to  clerical  feet.  You  are  dragging  your 
robes  in  the  mire  of  political  strife.  "  Preach  Christ,"  he 
impudently  says.  Poor  creature !  A  full  Christianity  is 


THE   MISSION   OF   AMERICA.  335 

the  last  thing  he  wishes  to  have  preached.  A  Christ  who 
is  Lord  of  lords  —  to  whom  belong  the  kingdoms  of  this 
world  —  who  demands  that  they  and  all  their  subjects  con- 
form in  all  things  to  the  kingdom  of  heaven  —  He  is  what 
such  transgressors  especially  dislike  and  dread. 

Even  church  members,  —  and  I  am  surprised  and  grieved 
to  say  it,  but  it  is  true  —  even  the  very  ministers  of  Christ 
themselves,  have  measurably  yielded  to  this  pressure  of 
antichrist.  And  in  our  land,  alone  of  all  lands  since  Adam, 
has  the  doctrine  been  avowed  by  the  Church  and  its  minister, 
that  they  have  nothing  to  do  with  the  movements  of  the 
State.  Far  from  it.  They  have  everything  to  do  with  it. 
They  always  have  had,  they  always  must. 

What  does  God  keep  mankind  on  the  earth  for  ?  Only 
that  He  may  build  them  into  a  holy  temple  in  the  Lord. 
But  is  one  part  of  the  temple  open  to  the  feet  of  His  ser- 
vants, and  not  another  ?  Laymen  could  not  enter  the  holy 
of  holies ;  but  priests  could  go  everywhere,  from  the  court 
of  the  Gentiles  to  the  altar  and  ark.  So  is  this  great  tem- 
ple of  humanity  open  to  the  inspection,  under  the  surveil- 
lance, of  the  ministry  and  the  Church. 

Thus  lias  it  always  been.  More  than  once  did  the  He- 
brew kings  seek  to  break  away  from  the  intermeddling 
clergy;  but  God  smote  the  politician,  not  the  prophet.  "Art 
thou  he  that  troubleth  Israel?"  cries  the  secessionist  Ahaz 
to  the  political  preacher  Elijah.  Thus  his  traitorous  de- 
scendants in  America  yet  confront  the  descendants  of  that 
prophet.  Saul  meddled  with  Samuel's  duties,  and  God  took 
his  kingdom  from  him.  But  Samuel  never  was  censured 
for  his  frequent  intermeddling  with  the  affairs  of  Saul.  David 
had  to  submit  to  the  authority  of  more  than  one  priest.  No 
priest  was  ever  compelled  to  silence  before  him.  Isaiah, 
Ezekiel,  Jeremiah,  Hosea,  Amos,  all  the  preachers  of  right- 
eousness, dwelt  on  social  and  civil  sins.  They  dwelt  on 
hardly  anything  else.  So  the  beginner  of  the  new  dispen- 


336        THE   STATE   A   CHRISTIAN   BROTHERHOOD. 

sation  laid  down  his  head  because  of  a  bit  of  political  inter- 
meddling with  the  affairs  of  the  government,  and  Christ  was 
bolder  than  all  His  followers  in  denouncing  the  conduct  of 
the  real  rulers  of  the  people. 

The  whole  history  of  the  Church  since  has  been  a  history 
of  its  conflict  with  the  world  and  the  rulers  of  the  world. 
The  first  Christians  were  executed  for  treason.  The  officers 
of  the  empire  required  them  to  take  the  prescribed  oath  of 
allegiance  —  the  recognition  of  the  divinity  of  the  emperor. 
They  refused,  and  were  cast  to  the  lions.  It  was  as  legiti- 
mate treason  as  that  of  John  Brown's,  and  their  death  was 
for  the  same  folly. 

It  has  continued  thus  ever  since.  The  wars  of  Charles 
Martel  and  Charlemagne  against  the  Mohammedan  and 
heathen  irruptors  from  Northern  and  Southern  Asia,  were 
inspired  by  the  clergy  ;  and  the  great  Charles  was  crowned 
by  the  Pope  solely  because  of  his  zeal  for  the  Church.  They 
show  you  the  field  where  Zwingle  fell,  in  a  religious  civil 
war  in  Switzerland,  at  the  head  of  the  Protestant  cantons  — 
struck  through  with  a  lance  because  he  would  not  pray  to 
the  Virgin. 

Cromwell's  rebellion  was  inaugurated  and  sustained  by 
the  clergy  in  the  interests  of  the  Church.  James'  conflict 
was  solely  on  matters  of  religion,  and  the  famous  trial  of  the 
Seven  Bishops,  for  meddling  wjth  the  decrees  of  the  State, 
was  the  real  cause  of  his  expulsion.  The  prisoner  of  Chillon, 
made  memorable  in  Byron's  verse,  but  more  memorable  by 
his  six  years'  confinement  to  a  subterranean  pillar  by  a  chain 
not  ten  feet  in  length,  was  a  minister  who,  from  his  pulpit, 
(Jared  to  defy  the  government  of  the  Duke  of  Savoy.  And 
God,  to  release  him,  stirred  up  a  civil  war  in  all  that  region, 
and  brought  the  men  of  Geneva  and  Berne  to  reduce  that 
fortress.  The  conversion  of  Geneva,  which  was  Roman 
Catholic  when  he  was  cast  into  that  dungeon,  to  the  re- 
formed faith,  of  which  it  has  been  for  three  hundred  years  so 


THE   MISSION   OF   AMERICA.  337 

eminent  a  defender,  was  due  to  the  faithful  political  preach- 
ing- of  Bonivard,  the  prior  of  St.  Victor.* 

The  necessity  of  defending  such  a  thesis  as  this  shows 
the  peril  of  the  nation.  As  a  law  against  an  especial  of- 
fense proves  the  prevalence  of  that  crime,  so  the  many 
words  that  have  had  to  be  spoken  in  America  by  clergymen 
within  the  last  few  years  in  defense  o£  the  right  to  speak, 
show  how  far  we  have  departed  from  the  custom  of  the  world 
elsewhere,  and  of  America  herself,  till  this  generation. 

England,  who  keeps  nearly  a  score  of  prelates  in  her 
highest  house,  whose  first  nobleman  is  a  minister,  the  suc- 
cessor of  Augustine,  never  dreams  that  the  clergy  degrade 
themselves  by  mingling  in  the  civil  strifes  of  the  day.  The 
religious  journals  discuss  political  questions  as  freely  as 
religious,  and  the  opening  editorial  of  the  London  Watch- 
man, the  Wesleyan  organ,  is  almost  always  a  political  article. 
So  was  it  here.  What  is  this  anniversary,  of  more  than 
two  hundred  years'  standing,  but  a  recognition  by  the  State 
of  the  duty  of  the  minister  to  enlighten  the  community  on 
national  sins  and  duties  ?  What  is  thanksgiving  but  a  like 
recognition  by  the  State  of  its  obligations  to  the  God  and 
Savior  of  nations  and  men  ? 

Let  me  not  be  understood  as  undervaluing  the  central 
duty  of  the  Church  and  ministry,  when  I  declare  that  our 
chief  peril,  as  a  nation,  is  in  refusing  to  avow  ourselves 
Christian,  and  in  excluding  the  appointed  embassadors  for 
Christ  from  the  questions  that  agitate  society.  Their  chief 
mission  is-  to  preach  the  Gospel ;  but  the  Gospel  is  not  con- 

*  "  The  range  of  the  history  of  the  Church  is  as  wide  as  the  range  of 
the  world  which  it  was  designed  to  permeate.  The  Christian  Church  is 
but  another  name  for  Christendom,  and  Christendom  merely  another 
name  for  the  most  civilized,  the  most  powerful,  the  most  important  na- 
tions of  the  modern  habitable  world." —  Stanley's  Lecture  on  the  Province 
of  Ecclesiastical  History,  in  the  introduction  to  his  History  of  the  Eastern 
Church,  p.  33,  et  seq.  See  other  admirable  remarks  on  the  Identity 
of  Church  and  State,  in  loc. 
22 


338         THE    STATE   A   CHRISTIAN   BROTHERHOOD. 

fined  to  a  repentance  and  faith  that  have  no  connection  with 
social  or  civil  duties.  The  Evangel  of  Christ  is  an  all-em- 
bracing theme.  It  is  the  vital  force  of  everything  in  earth 
and  in  heaven.  What  the  ancients  dreamed  respecting  the 
relation  of  the  earth  to  the  worlds  around  it  is  true  in  a 
spiritual  sense.  The  Cross  is  the  centre  of  the  spiritual, 
and  therefore  of  the  material,  universe. 

If  so,  then  must  all  things,  human  and  temporal,  acknowl- 
edge its  supremacy.  Literature,  science,  politics,  business, 
the  status  of  society,  all  charities,  all  reforms,  —  there  is 
nothing  that  you  can  conceive  that  has  not  an  intimate  re- 
lation, friendly  or  hostile,  to  the  Cross  of  Christ.  The  God- 
appointed  bearers  of  that  Cross  have  no  right  to  omit  the 
consideration  of  these  topics.  They  are  traitors  to  their 
Commander-in-chief  if  they  do.  Every  knee  and  every 
thing  shall  bow  to  Christ,  and  it  is  our  duty  to  bring  all 
these  matters  to  that  divine  test.  It  is  thus  alone  that  the 
kingdom  of  Christ  can  be  universally  established.  It  is  thus 
alone  that  it  can  be  preserved  in  any  measure  of  purity  and 
vitality. 

You  can  easily  see  what  would  be  the  result  of  yielding 
this  point  through  cowardly  complicity.  The  politician  says, 
"  You  must  not  preach  politics  ;  "  and  then  goes  on  estab- 
lishing the  State  on  injustice,  and  framing  iniquity  by  a  law, 
while  you  set  before  him,  with  great  assiduity,  the  savorless 
salt  of  an  exhausted  and  tasteless  Gospel.  He  opens  his 
thousands  of  grog-shops  in  defiance  of  you,  as  he  has  in  Bos- 
ton for  years.  He  expels  the  Bible  from  the  public  schools. 
He  seeks  to  abolish  the  death  penalty,  giving  free  scope  to 
murderous  passion.  He  abolishes,  as  they  almost  did  last 
week  in  our  Legislature,  the  chief  penalty  for  adultery, 
undermining  the  corner-stone  of  human  society.  Thus  he 
cunningly  thrusts  Christ  from  His  temple,  and  puts  His 
enemy  on  His  throne. 

The  evil  stops  not  here.      It  invades  His  inner  sanctuary. 


THE   MISSION   OF  AMERICA.  339 

The  crafty  Philistines  have  entrapped  the  clergy  in  this 
diabolic  doctrine  of  State  rights  —  the  parent  of  its  better 
known,  but  not  baser  kindred.  They  are  shorn  of  their 
strength.  The  pulpit  must  not  preach  against  usury,  the 
besetting  sin  of  business  communities,  —  that  is  not  Christ 
Crucified.  Some  rich  brother,  who  has  waxed  fat  on  these 
ill-gotten  gains,  will  denounce  you  as  an  intermeddler,  while 
his  conduct  uncensured,  and  himself  undisciplined,  keeps 
scores  from  the  Church.  You  must  not  talk  against  the 
opera  or  theater,  for  that  is  a  social  matter,  and  "  Christ 
Crucified"  does  not  touch  the  pleasures  of  life.  "  It  is  not 
forbidden,"  they  say,  "  in  the  Bible,  though  it  was  then  the 
most  popular  amusement."  In  this  respect  it  is  on  the 
same  level  as  slavery,  according  to  its  apologists.  What 
an  age  has  passed  since  their  base  pleas  defiled  the  nation  ! 

We  cannot  denounce  the  insane  passion  for  fiction,  even 
when  it  is  running  wild  over  the  Church  itself,  and  so  in- 
fecting all  the  tiny  vines  of  the  nursery,  that  when  we  shall 
hereafter  look  that  they  bring  forth  grapes,  they  will  bring 
forth  wild  grapes.  Is  there  any  connection  between  what 
we  shall  read  and  "  Christ  and  Him  crucified  "  ?  Thus  the 
enemy  constrains  us  to  throw  down  the  hedge  around  the 
Church  itself,  and  invite  the  boar  out  of  the  wood  to  waste 
it,  and  the  wild  beast  of  the  field  to  devour  it. 

Do  you  say,  "  Such  possibilities  are  the  foolish  fancies  of 
a  mere  theorist  ?  Why  not  tell  things  as  they  are  ?  "  In 
this  I  am  no  dreamer  of  dreams.  The  results  of  this  divorce 
have  been  seen  in  this  country  in  a  more  shameful  prostitu- 
tion of  the  ministry  and  the  Church  than  in  any  country  in 
modern  history  —  almost  than  in  any  country  in  any  history. 
We  need  not  go  outside  of  our  own  history  as  a  Church  for 
the  painful  proof.  We  have  seen  in  its  brief  life  a  large 
portion  of  its  clergy  in  the  presence  of  an  enormous  sin,  re- 
fusing to  confront  it,  declaring  that  to  say  aught  against 
it  was  to  preach  politics,  and  for  this  cause  they  were  not 


340        THE    STATE   A   CHRISTIAN   BROTHERHOOD. 

sent.  Though  they  knew  that  the  political  face  of  the  many- 
headed  dog-  of  hell  was  the  last  and  least,  though  they  saw 
the  infinite  immorality  it  engendered,  the  blasphemy  against 
Christ  and  His  Church,  the  social,  private,  universal  cor- 
ruption that  broke  out  everywhere  in  the  regions  it  occu- 
pied, —  still  they  said,  to  preach  against  it  is  to  preach 
politics,  and  our  business  is  to  proclaim  Christ  Crucified. 

So  they  broke  away  from  their  brethren  who  protested 
not  against  their  silence,  not  even  against  their  clerical 
communion  with  the  monster.  The  episcopal  contact  was 
all  they  shuddered  at.  They  felt  that  his  anointed  hands, 
fresh  from  the  scourging  of  slaves,  could  hardly  impart  or- 
daining grace.  His  friends  resented  such  a  reflection  on 
them.  They  revolted,  and  set  up  for  themselves  as  a  Church 
of  Jesus  Christ  —  a  pretense  as  profane  as  the  claim  of  the 
most  corrupt  of  Popes,  that  he  is  Christ's  vicegerent. 

They  entered  into  an  alliance  with  this  crime.  The  sons 
of  God  married  themselves  to  this  daughter  of  Satan, 

"  Seems  woman  to  the  waist,  and  fair, 
But  endeth  foul  in  many  a  scaly  fold, 
Voluminous  and  vast  —  a  serpent  armed 
With  mortal  sting.     About  her  middle  round 
A  cry  of  hell-hounds,  never  ceasing,  bark 
With  wide  Cerberian  mouths  full  loud,  and  ring 
A  hideous  peal." 

The  Church  and  the  State  were  made  one  flesh,  and  horrid 
flesh  it  was  too  ;  and  to-day  the  deluge  of  fire  is  pouring 
down  upon  the  doomed  region,  and  that  haughty  Methodist 
Episcopal  Church  South,  where  is  it  ?  With  the  antedilu- 
vian cathedrals  and  congregations  of  Cain.  They  pretended 
to  be  opposed  to  meddling  with  political  and  social  sins. 
They  became  their  slave.  "And  God  has  wiped  them  as  a 
man  wipeth  a  dish,  wiping  it  and  turning  it  upside  down." 
So  He  dealt  with  His  beloved  Ephraim.  So  with  the  more 
beloved  Judah.  So  He  will  deal  with  every  Church  that 
deals  thus  with  Him.  Only  by  repentance  and  a  turning 


THE   MISSION  OF   AMERICA.  341 

with  their  whole  heart  to  Him  can  this  Church  be  saved. 
May  such  repentance  and  salvation  yet  be  theirs. 

He  appoints  His  ministers  to  watch  over  souls  as  those 
that  must  give  account.  It  is  His  duty,  therefore,  to  make 
every  thing  contribute  to  their  salvation.  Will  a  wicked 
system  of  government  imperil  the  spiritual  welfare  of  its 
subjects  ?  He  must  resist  it  unto  the  death.  Will  social 
vices  tend  to  their  corruption  ?  They  must  be  attacked  and 
overthrown.  Will  false  doctrines  delude  souls  to  destruc- 
tion ?  They  must  be  rebuked.  Would  not  a  holy  society, 
a  correct  system  of  government,  correctly  administered,  a 
pure  and  lofty  literature,  —  in  fine,  a  virtuous  civil  and 
social  organization,  —  tend  to  the  salvation  of  more  souls 
than  corrupted  morals,  despotic  government,  and  debasing 
literature  ?  Christ  Crucified,  preached  to  a  community  under 
the  pressure  of  all  manner  of  inward  and  outward  lust,  would 
be  proclaimed  almost  as  vainly  as  in  Pandemonium  itself. 
He  is  most  successfully  lifted  up  when  all  the  surroundings 
approximate  to  the  divinity  of  this  central  truth. 

Only  thus  does  He  keep  the  field  at  all.  To  keep  the 
standard  flying  we  must  take  care  of  the  wings  of  the  army. 
We  must  prevent  flank  movements,  and  all  manner  of  subtle 
assaults.  What  matters  it  that  you  gather  round  the  flag, 
if  you  desert  the  outposts.  Great  Britain  fought  for  herself 
by  trying  with  Nelson's  fleet  to  confine  Bonaparte  in  Egypt, 
as  much  as  by  setting  a  guard  in  the  English  Channel.  Wel- 
lington was  defending  London  when  campaigning  in  the 
Peninsula. 

So  is  it  with  the  Gospel  of  the  Cross.  Christ  Crucified  is 
the  grand  banner  of  the  Church,  in  its  conflict  with  the 
world.  It  is  the  only  Name  whereby  the  world  can  be 
saved.  It  must  be  always  and  everywhere  proclaimed.  It 
must  be  always  and  everywhere  defended.  But  to  come 
and  hug  that  flag-staff  with  apparent  fondness,  while  the 
enemy  is  plowing  the  outer  lines  with  his  diabolic  artillery, 


342        THE    STATE   A   CHRISTIAN   BROTHERHOOD. 

is  not  affection,  —  it  is  cowardice ;  and  the  officer  who  tnus 
comports  himself  receives  contempt,  not  commendation, 
from  his  Master.  Take  your  flag  with  you,  and  rush  thither. 
Smite  down  the  enemy  in  this  remotest  assault,  and  you 
preserve  your  army  from  more  central  peril. 

The  indifference  of  God's  ministers  to  this  great  social 
duty  has  undoubtedly  bred  infidelity.  The  very  Cross  of 
Christ,  the  ark  of  God,  has  it  not  been  taken,  in  our  pre- 
tense that  we  must  be  so  busy  in  defending-  it,  that  we  can- 
not speak  on  a  political  sin  ?  The  politicians  we  patronized 
despised  us.  The  men  of  conscience  and  moral  vision,  who 
were  blind  to  the  full  truth  of  the  Gospel,  also  despised  us 
for  truckling  to  popular  and  powerful  sin,  and  both  became 
skeptics  as  to  the  very  truth  which  we  professed  to  be  so 
anxious  to  keep  from  harm. 

Bear  with  me,  my  brethren,  if  my  words  seem  overmuch. 
They  spring  from  the  profoundest  convictions  of  my  moral 
being.  They  seem  to  me  eminently,  preeminently  appro- 
priate to  us,  to  the  occasion,  and  to  the  land  in  which  we 
are  required  to  make  full  proof  of  our  ministry.  The  great- 
est problem  that  we  are  working  out  here  is  not  the  equality 
and  fraternity  of  all  the  children  of  man,  unspeakably  great 
as  that  is,  but  the  power  to  preserve  the  utmost  liberty  of 
worship  and  the  utmost  liberty  of  no  worship,  with  a  pure 
society  and  a  predominant  Christianity.  It  is  an  attempt  to 
trust  the  human  race  with  the  offers  of  salvation,  without 
endeavoring,  in  the  least  degree,  to  compel  their  acquies- 
cence. It  is  the  last  possible  combination  of  the  divine 
and  human  in  man's  history.  It  is  not  unlike,  one  may 
fancy,  the  probation  of  the  angels  who  keep,  and  those  who 
kept  not,  their  first  estate.  It  is  the  very  opposite  of  the 
position  of  the  Father  of  the  Church.  Abraham  served  God 
with  the  whole  world,  to  a  man,  against  him.  A  State  or  a 
national  Christianity  could  not,  therefore,  then  be  possible. 
David  lived  under  a  system  in  which  every  statute  and  cere- 


THE  MISSION   OF  AMERICA.  343 

mony,  civil  and  religious,  was  of  divine  appointment.  Eu- 
ropean Christians  have  these  outward  constraints  abounding. 
We  have  no  constraint  at  all. 

Yet  so  much  the  more  must  the  Church  rule  everywhere. 
It  is  a  calcium  light,  shining  out  over  the  whole  field.  It 
is  commander-in-chief,  riding  and  ruling  everywhere.  It 
must  bring  every  thought  into  obedience  to  Christ.  What- 
ever subject  or  practice  affects  the  morals,  and  so  the  bafis 
of  religion,  it  is  not  only  legitimate  for  the  ministry  to  bring 
to  the  Gospel  light,  that  it  may  be  seen  what  manner  of 
spirit  it  is  of,  it  is  absolutely  commanded  them  so  to  do.  And 
he  who  refuses — no  matter  what  excuse  he  may  put  forth — 
is  verily  guilty  of  treachery  to  the  cause  of  his  Master.  He 
may  not  so  purpose  in  his  heart,  but  that  is  the  fatal  end. 

Therefore,  my  beloved  brethren,  be  ye  steadfast  and  im- 
movable in  this  great  duty.  Let  the  churches  rejoice  to 
co-operate  with  their  leaders  in  this  work.  Hold  up  aloft  a 
full  Gospel,  that  shall  illumine  every  custom,  thought,  and 
feeling  of  the  society,  every  path  of  human  activity  ;  that 
shall  make  all  daily  pursuits,  mercantile,  manufacturing 
or  otherwise,  holy  and  unblamable  before  God;  —  how  far 
they  are  from  it  let  usury,  adulteration,  fraud,  all  the  tricks 
of  trade,  answer; — that  shall  rectify  and  exalt  civil  govern- 
ment as  the  confessed  servant  of  Christ ;  so  that  while  grant- 
ing the  utmost  liberty  of  conscience,  it  shall  be  none  the 
less  bold  to  declare  that  it  is  a  Christian  government  —  a 
State  of  the  great  world-federation  whereof  our  Lord  is  to 
be  the  unseen,  yet  always  seen,  Sovereign. 

II.  The  other  topic  connected  with  our  theme  and  occa- 
sion deserves  ampler  attention  than  we  are  now  at  liberty 
to  give.  We  have  said  that  the  mission  of  America  seems 
to  be  twofold.  First,  to  prove  that  the  utmost  liberty  of 
conscience  can  co-exist  with  a  ruling  Christianity ;  and, 
second,  that  the  utmost  liberty  and  equality  of  all  men  can 
co-exist  with  a  stable  and  prosperous  government.  The  last 


344        THE    STATE   A   CHRISTIAN   BROTHERHOOD. 

is  as  unsolved  a  problem  as  the  first.  It  is  being  tested  to- 
day. Only  the  power  of  true  Christianity  can  secure  its 
success.  Many  of  you  will  say,  "  There  is  no  question  as 
to  its  success.  Have  we  not  welcomed  all  Europe  to  our 
shores  ?  Are  we  not  proud  to  acknowledge  Ireland  and 
England,  Germany  and  Italy,  Hungary  and  Poland  —  every 
exile  from  a  murdered  or  a  murdering  nation,  as  our  friend 
aiftl  brother  ?  "  What  does  that  prove  ?  Do  we  call  the 
Prince  of  Wales  a  democrat  because  he  says,  "  I  am  willing 
to  marry  any  one  of  a  certain  rank  ?  "  We  look  on  these 
peoples  as  first  cousins.  They  are  near  of  kin.  Of  course 
it  is  no  disgrace  for  us  to  recognize  their  equality. 

But  there  is  another  people  among  us — another  portion  of 
our  Father's  family  as  much  beloved  of  Him  as  any  European. 
How  do  we  look  on  them  ?  How  do  we  feel  towards  them  ? 
What  merchant  here  will  put  behind  his  counter  an  intelli- 
gent, accomplished,  virtuous,  gentlemanly  youth,  whose 
blood  is  known  to  have  come  in  ever  so  slight  a  degree 
from  the  oldest  continent  and  the  oldest  child  of  Noah  ? 

By  the  rights  of  primogeniture,  Ham  had  precedence  of 
all  his  brethren.  He  should  have  been  the  father  of  the 
Son  of  God.  But  sin  in  him,  as  in  Cain,  Esau,  and  Reuben, 
deprived  him  of  his  birthright.  And,  lo !  his  youngest 
brother's  sons,  not  those  who  took  his  place  —  for  the  chil- 
dren of  Shem,  the  brothers  and  sisters  of  our  Lord,  have  no 
aversion  to  those  of  Ham  —  not  those  of  Japhet  even,  as  a 
whole  —  but  a  little  clique  of  this  youngest  brother's  chil- 
dren put  on  airs  of  immeasurable  superiority,  and  talk  of 
colonizing  their  elder  cousins  by  themselves,  and  of  the  im- 
possibility of  treating  them  as  their  equals  and  brothers, 
their  color  is  so  very  abhorrent,  though  many  a  darker 
European  than  multitudes  of  them,  have,  in  the  same  eyes, 
the  most  aristocratic  of  complexions. 

But  we  must  welcome  them  as  brothers  or  die.  There  is 
no  alternative.  God,  our  Creator  and  theirs,  has  brought 


THE   MISSION   OF   AMERICA.  345 

us  to  this  shore,  foreign  to  both  of  us,  that  He  may  here 
develop  the  fullness  of  that  Gospel  scheme  He  is  seeking  to 
establish  in  the  earth. 

The  division  of  languages  and  of  man  was  because  of 
sin.  It  was  the  first  punishment  after  the  flood.  In  carry- 
ing forward  His  enterprise  of  subduing  the  world  to  Himself, 
He  found  that  He  must  first  separate  the  human  race  by 
long-enduring  boundaries.  He  must  make  them  so  substan- 
tially independent  creations,  that  some  of  their  half  wise 
men  should  declare  they  had  many  original  centers  of  dis- 
persion. They  had  but  one,  —  in  the  plains  of  Shinar,  at 
the  tower  of  Babel. 

As  the  world  is  approaching  its  ultimate  paradisiacal  es- 
tate, it  must  approach  the  conditions  of  the  primitive  abode. 
There  must  be  one  language  and  one  family.  The  language 
which  seems  to  be  in  advance  of  all  others  as  a  world-sub- 
duing tongue,  is  the  English.  Though,  when  one  has  spent 
months  among  millions  of  people  who  have  never  heard  of 
this  tongue,  he  is  constrained  to  doubt  its  speedy  universal- 
ity, still,  it  occupies  to-day  more  diffused  and  more  numerous 
centers  than  any  other  tongue,  and  seems  to  be  engirdling 
the  earth.  America  will,  undoubtedly,  contribute  largely 
to  this  end ;  not  a  little  by  the  enormous  emigration  which 
she  will  yet  draw  from  every  nation  of  Europe. 

She  will  also  contribute,  in  no  small  degree,  to  the  accom- 
plishment of  the  other  equally  dubious  and  seemingly  remote 
but  most  certain  event — the  solidarity  of  the  human  race. 
As  in  Adam  all  were  separated,  so  in  Christ  shall  all  be 
united.  In  that  oneness  there  shall  be  neither  Greek  nor 
Jew,  barbarian  nor  Scythian,  bond  nor  free.  This  was  the 
apostle's  bold  declaration  to  the  proud  Greeks  of  Colosse. 
He  did  not  add  "  white  or  black,"  because  there  are  no 
whites,  as  we  call  them,  in  that  dusky  clime.  He  touched 
the  marrow  of  their  sensitive  prejudice  in  putting  Scythian 
and  barbarian  on  a  level  with  themselves.  His  equally  bold 


346        THE    STATE   A   CHRISTIAN   BROTHERHOOD. 

declaration  to  the  most  fastidious  Athenians,  that  God  made 
of  one  blood  all  the  nations  of  men,  must  yet  be  verified  in 
the  earth.  America  seems  to  be  the  spot  where  this  divine 
purpose  is  to  be  first  accomplished. 

Other  countries  are  in  advance  of  us  in  some  of  the  .ele- 
ments of  that  perfect  society.  But  in  no  one  are  all  of 
them  in  such  rapid  process  of  solution  and  recrystallization 
as  here.  The  three  essentials  of  that  state  are  well  expressed 
in  the  French  democrat's  saying,  yet  burning  on  the  tri- 
umphal arches  of  Louis  the  Great  in  spite  of  all  the  obscur- 
ing eiforts  of  their  present  tyrant  —  "  Liberty  —  Equality— 
Fraternity."  The  equality  and  fraternity  of  the  African 
and  Asiatic  are  perfectly  carried  out  in  Egypt.  Alike  equal- 
ity and  fraternity  of  the  African  and  European  exist  in 
Mexico,  the  West  Indies,  and  the  Southern  States.  One 
of  the  first  scientific  scholars  of  the  country,*  long  a  resi- 
dent in  Alabama  and  Georgia,  informed  me  that  seven  eighths 
of  the  colored  people  of  the  South  are  partly  white. 

But  in  neither  of  these  eastern  or  western  experiments 
is  there  a  corresponding  liberty,  culture,  and  Christianity. 
These  are  needed  to  make  the  other  three  of  any  value.  All 
these  may,  and  if  we  are  true  to  our  national  mission  will, 
exist  in  this  country.  Here  we  have,  as  our  foundation- 
stone,  the  European  democrat's  triad.  We  have  it  elevated 
and  consecrated  by  universal  education  and  the  fullest  ex- 
pression of  Christianity. 

There  we  stop.  To  apply  these  to  ALL  our  people  —  "aye, 
there's  the  rub."  It  is  dreadful  to  many  undeveloped  natures 
that  God,  upon  opening  for  us  this  fountain  of  living  waters, 
should  have  invited  our  brethren  of  other  climes  to  come 
and  drink  also.  He  has  built  an  'ark  for  humanity,  and,  lo  ! 
as  we  very  clean  beasts  are  pompously  marching  in,  these 
strange  and  most  unclean  creatures  also  enter. 

*  Alexander  "Winchcll,  LL.  D.,  Professor  of  Natural  Science  in  Mich- 
igan University. 


THE   MISSION   OF    AMERICA.  347 

We  wanted  the  gifts  all  to  ourselves.  Like  Peter,  amid 
the  glories  of  the  transfiguration,  have  we  been  in  the 
transfiguration  of  His  truth  in  our  land.  We  have  been  per- 
fectly willing  to  abide  in  it  ourselves,  and  have  been  utterly 
thoughtless  of  these  our  brethren  :  nay,  not  utterly  thought- 
less, cruelly  thoughtful  in  our  aversion  to  their  sharing  with 
us  this  excellent  glory.  Had  Peter  seen  a  Gentile  coming 
up  the  hill  that  moment,  he  would  undoubtedly,  in  his  hot, 
self-confident,  American  fashion,  have  insisted  on  Christ  in- 
terrupting his  conversation  with  the  resplendent  spirits  while 
he  expelled  the  loathsome  intruder.  "  Dost  thou  dare,"  he 
would  exclaim,  "  to  intrude  upon  our  dear,  delightful,  Ju- 
dean  banquet !  Don't  you  see  that  it  is  Moses  and  Elias 
that  are  talking  with  our  Lord  ?  Only  the  chosen  people 
can  come  up  hither.  Begone  to  your  outer  darkness  !  " 

Peter  afterwards  had  a  bitter  trial  of  what  he  called 
conscience  and  Christianity,  but  which  \vas  only  a  Satanic 
prejudice,  when,  on  that  tanner's  housetop  he  was  invited 
to  the  unseemly  feast.  Go  to  your  dinner  to-day,  and  see 
.toads,  and  snakes,  and  snails  upon  the  table,  and  you  would 
find  it  easy  to  comply  with  the  request  of  the  Governor. 
But  if,  in  addition  to  our  so-called  natural  abhorrence,  we 
found  in  the  Discipline,  by  special  inspiration  of  God, 
through  the  lips  of  our  founder,  an  express  command  to 
abstain  from  them  as  unclean,  we  should  shake  off  the  dust 
of  our  feet  against  the  profane  host,  and  betake  ourselves 
to  more  Methodistical  and  more  decent  quarters.  Yet  God, 
who  had  interdicted  them  through  Moses,  now  says  to  this 
zealous  disciple  of  Moses,  "  What  I  have  cleansed,  that  call 
thou  not  common,"  —  says  it  to  you  and  me  to-day,  no  less 
than  to  Peter  at  Joppa  :  as  hard  bound  in  carnal  prejudice 
as  he,  and,  unlike  him,  without  any  shadow  of  Scripture 
authority  to  support  our  contempt. 

The  vision  is  precisely  adapted  to  us.  We,  like  Peter, 
call  a  portion  of  our  neighbors  and  kindred  common  and 


348         THE   STATE   A   CHRISTIAN   BROTHERHOOD. 

unclean  —  unlike  him,  in  this  respect,  too,  that  he  seemed 
to  have  divine  command  so  to  call  them,  for  they  were 
separated  from  him  by  decrees  of  His  appointment.  We 
loathe  our  brothers  of  the  same  Gentile  family.  We  look 
on  them  as  of  another  race.  We  talk  about  colonizing 
them,  giving  up  to  them  the  Gulf  States,  or  the  torrid  sec- 
tions of  America,  — 

"  Anywhere,  anywhere,  out  of  the  world,"  — 

so  that  we  can  rid  ourselves  of  their  abhorred  presence. 
We  are  theoretically,  vociferously,  valiantly  in  favor  of 
equal  rights.  We  pour  out  bur  money  and  our  lives  for 
the  great  cause.  We  fill  the  heavens  with  our  jubilant  re- 
verberations on  the  national  birthday.  But  when  it  comes 
to  the  little  practical  matter  of  letting  our  darkly-hued 
neighbor  sit  at  our  table,  work  at  our  bench,  tend  behind 
our  counter,  enter  into  business  partnerships  with  us,  be 
our  teacher,  doctor,  or  stationed  preacher,  ah,  how  the 
Petrine  nature  swells  indignantly  within  us,  and  we  exclaim, 
"  Not  so,  Lord."  Yea,  we  are  ready  to  cry  in  the  ears  of 
God,  my  brother,  though  we  fancy  it  is  only  in  those  of 
man,  "  Away  with  the  fellow  that  talks  such  abominations 
from  the  earth.  It  is  not  worthy  that  he  should  live." 

Yet  hither  is  God's  providence  drawing  us.  A  profane 
Bostonian  lately  said,  "  I  never  did,  and  do  not  now,  care 
anything  for  the  negro.  But  I  have  about  concluded  that 
God  does."  The  tide  sweeps  with  increasing  force  and 
volume  against  these  deep  and  ancient  prejudices.  They 
will  be  overwhelmed.  And  when  buried,  we  shall  be  borne 
forward  by  the  rolling  waves  of  superior  truth  to  the  head- 
lands of  superior  vision.  Did  not  that  faithful  Jew  feel  a 
strange  enlargement  of  soul  when  lie  saw  the  centurion  and 
his  house  receiving  the  word  of  the  Lord  ?  When  he  touched 
his  holy  Jewish  hands,  wet  with  the  sacred  water  of  bap- 
tism, on  that  till  then  accursed  brow,  the  preacher  received 


'THE   MISSION   OF   AMERICA.  349 

a  greater  baptism  of  the  Holy  Ghost  than  the  candidate. 
There  fell  from  his  eyes  as  if  it  had  been  scales.  He  saw 
the  Gospel  limited  to  no  inconsiderable  race  and  spot,  but, 
like  the  sun,  shining  with  equal  glory  on  every  land  and  on 
every  man. 

So  we,  emancipated  from  the  base-born  feeling  of  caste, 
which  now  rules  us  with  its  rod  of  iron  as  tyrannically  as 
it  does  the  Brahmins  of  India  or  the  nobility  of  England,  will 
feel  something  of  the  length  and  breadth,  the  depth  and 
hight  of  His  purposes  and  feelings  toward  our  race.  To 
call  every  man  brother,  unmindful  of  all  outward  aspects ; 
to  feel  that  he  is  YOUR  brother,  absolutely,  entirely  ;  to  treat 
him  as  such,  unconscious  of  any  distinction  between  you, 
—  how  will  the  heart,  thus  freed,  grow  in  the  likeness  and 
after  the  stature  of  its  Creator  and  Redeemer !  It  will  have 
climbed  the  last  of  the  mountains  interposed  that  have  made 
enemies  of  nations  and  of  men.  The  whole  landscape  of 
man's  futurity  lies  before  him  ;  the  land  of  Beulah,  whither 
the  race,  with  many  weary  pilgrim  steps,  is  slowly  tending,  — 

"  A  land  of  corn,  and  wine,  and  oil, 
Favored  with  God's  peculiar  smile, 

With  every  blessing  blest ; 
There  dwells  the  Lord  our  righteousness, 
And  keeps  His  own  in  perfect  peace, 

And  everlasting  rest." 

'We  shall  see  all  the  sons  of  Adam  at  peace  with  them- 
selves and  with  their  God.  They  speak  one  language.  They 
feel  the  pulsations  of  a  common  brotherhood.  While  they 
have  all  the  distinctions  of  a  family,  in  taste  and  action  — 
one  a  scholar,  one  an  orator,  one  a  merchant,  one  a  me- 
chanic ;  while  each  nation  may  have  its  special  character 
after  this  sort,  —  as  Italy  is  the  home  of  art,  Germany  of 
thought,  France  of  taste,  and  England  of  business, — yet 
like  brothers  of  varied  tastes  and  pursuits,  they  will  rejoice 
in  this  diversity  of  gifts,  but  the  same  spirit.  The  varieties 


350        THE   STATE   A  CHRISTIAN   BROTHERHOOD. 

of  complexion  will  be  as  agreeable  as  is  now  the  variety 
of  beautiful  countenances.  They  will  feel,  not  only  no  es- 
trangement, but  a  vehement  rush  of  blood  to  blood. 

"  Thither  the  warm  affections  move, 
Nor  shall  we  call  them  thence." 

The  whole  earth  will  not  seem  too  large  to  that  Christian 
family  —  girded  by  steam,  bound  together  by  that  electric 
cord  which  transmits  the  feelings  and  thoughts  of  the  whole 
world  as  instantaneously  as  the  brain  communicates  with 
the  heart,  they, 

"  Like  kindred  drops,  will  mingle  into  one."  * 

In  the  glory  of  that  fast  coming  prospect,  how  the  petty 
contractedness  of  our  unseemly  prejudice  drops  from  us 
as  fetters  from  the  emancipated  slave,  as  a  strait-jacket 
from  a  cured  maniac,  as  the  weight  of  imbecility  from 
the  enlightened  idiot !  This  effluence  of  spiritual  illumination 
will  strike  us  more  powerfully  than  it  will  our  dark-complex- 
ioned brother.  It  will  be  a  novel  outgleaming  to  us,  not 
to  him.  He  has  long  felt  the  truth  of  the  unity  of  Man. 
He  has  long  known  that  he  is  your  brother.  It  is  strange, 
inconceivably  strange  to  him,  that  you  have  not  known  that 
you  are  his.  You  so  intelligent,  so  superior  to  him  in  your 
advantages,  not  to  know  this  simplest  and  most  fundamental 
of  truths.  The  words  of  Christ  are  his  sole  refuge  in  his 
perplexity.  "  I  thank  Thee,  0  Father,  Maker  of  heaven  and 
earth,  that  Thou  hast  hidden  these  things  from  the  wise  and 
prudent,  and  revealed  them  unto  babes.  Even  so,  Father, 
for  so  it  seems  good  in  Thy  sight." 

How  great  the  strides  made  in  America  in  the  last  two 
years  to  this  glorious  consummation  !  A  friend  of  mine,  a 
New  York  lawyer,  had  a  fine  Afric-European  superintending 
his  farm.  The  morning  after  the  call  for  the  first  seventy- 
five  thousand  volunteers,  the  young  man  informed  him  that 

*  Sec  Note  XII. 


THE   MISSION   OF   AMERICA.  351 

he  could  not  work  for  him  any  longer.  "  Why  not  ?  "  "I 
am  going  to  war."  "  But  you  can't  go."  "  Why  not  ?  " 
He  was  ashamed  to  answer  the  glowing  patriot,  but  he  had 
to  :  "  Because  you  are  black  !  "  The  poor  fellow  stood 
paralyzed,  as  if  a  bullet  had  pierced  his  heart.  He  had  for- 
gotten all  about  his  brown  complexion.  His  heart  was  red 
with  the  hottest  of  patriot  blood.  The  call  made  no  refer- 
ence to  white  men.  How  was  he  excluded  ?  He  shrunk 
back  to  his  enforced  shame,  and  we  went  about  the  task 
of  saving  the  country  without  the  aid  of,  with  violent  hos- 
tility towards,  such  as  him,  full  one  sixth  of  our  people. 

God  has  taught  us  that  we  cannot  be  saved  unless  they 
are  saved  also.  We  are  beginning  to  accept  His  terms. 
That  young  man  can  now  be  enrolled  as  a  soldier.  He  may 
soon  take  rank  as  an  officer.  He,  or  such  as  he,  may  yet 
outrank  and  command  their  proud  and  half-hearted  despisers, 
whose  blood  is  of  the  same  complexion  as  their  skins.  They 
are  the  true  Copperheads  that  will  save  the  Republic.  They 
will  go  into  this  war,  as  Frederick  Douglass  says,  not  as 
hewers  of  wood  and  drawers  of  water,  but  as  men.  They 
will  come  out  of  it  our  recognized  equals  and  associates. 
We  shall  be  blood  relations  then,  as  never  before.  A  com- 
mon baptism  of  sorrow  and  death  will  make  us,  at  last,  one 
people,  and  thus  prepare  the  way  for  a  universal  family. 

The  last  thought,  though  distasteful  to  some  of  our 
brethren  elsewhere,  cannot  be  offensive  to  us.  For  last 
year,  by  a  unanimous  vote,  we  adopted  a  resolution  de- 
nouncing the  sin  of  caste.  You  remember  the  pregnant 
words  :  — 

"  Resolved,  That  we  deprecate  the  unchristian  spirit  of 
caste  so  prevalent  throughout  the  North,  and  even  among 
many  professed  anti-slavery  men  with  respect  to  people  of 
color,  and  we  can  never  regard  our  reformatory  work  ac- 
complished till  they  enjoy  equal  rights  and  privileges  with 
other  classes." 


352         THE    STATE   A   CHRISTIAN   BROTHERHOOD. 

It  is  a  high  honor  for  this  Conference  to  thus  lead  the 
Church,  and  for  once  to  lead  the  reformatory  section  of  the 
nation  in  the  great  movement.  As  our  fathers,  some  of 
whom  are  still  present,  though  most  have  fallen  asleep,  in 
advance  of  all  other  bodies  of  ministers,  twenty-eight  years 
ago  proclaimed  the  duty  of  immediate  and  unconditional 
emancipation,  elected  delegates  to  the  General  Conference 
on  that  issue,  and  began  the  agitation  which,  with  all  its 
imperfections,  has  purged  the  Church,  if  not  the  Discipline, 
of  arrogant  slaveholders  in  the  ministry  and  membership, 
and  is  fast  purging  the  land,  if  it  cannot  the  Constitution, 
of  the  like  mass  of  proud  and  putrid  flesh  ;  so  this  resolution 
is  the  first  utterance  by  the  Church  of  what  will  yet  be  a 
truth,  universally  and  proudly  recognized. 

Let  our  words  and  works  agree.  To  do  this  will  require 
the  discharge  of  many  duties  yet  in  violent  conflict  with  our 
pride  and  prejudice.  May  I  mention  a  few  of  them  ? 

1.  We  must  expunge  the  word  "  colored  "  from  our  Min- 
utes. It  ought  never  to  have  found  a  place  there.  How 
abominable  that  epithet  must  appear  in  the  eyes  of  the 
Savior,  by  whom  these  His  brethren  were  cleansed  with  the 
same  blood,  and,  perchance,  at  the  same  moment  and  the 
same  altar  !  He  does  not  write  it  in  the  Lamb's  book  of 
life  —  the  heavenly  Minutes  of  His  church.  Born  into  His 
divine  family,  we  are  nearer  of  kin  to  them  than  brothers  of 
a  human  household.  And  yet  we  shamefully  degrade  them. 
How  unchristian  and  inhuman  such  conduct  is,  may  be  seen 
from  a  single  example.  Suppose  an  unfortunate  dwarf 
should  join  this  church,  and  the  pastor  should  return  three 
hundred  full  grown  adults  and  one  dwarf ;  or  if  a  dozen 
mutes,  or  blind,  should  become  members,  and  we  should 
make  the  like  distinction,  how  quickly  should  we  revolt  from 
the  revelation  in  ourselves  of  the  old  leaven  of  malice  and 
wickedness  !  What  a  torrent  of  indignation  would  be  poured 
on  our  Missionary  Board  if  they  should  publish  in  their  East 


THE    MISSION   OF   AMERICA.  353 

Indian  returns  their  Brahmin  and  Pariah  members  in  separate 
columns  ! 

But  the  worst  feature  in  this  iniquity  is,  that  it  casts 
reproach  on*  those  who,  by  the  pressure  of  an  ungodly 
world,  are  already  oppressed.  The  Gospel  is  especially 
tender  towards  the  lowly  and  despised.  We  are  especially 
cruel.  It  also  inevitably  breeds  in  us  hardness  of  heart  — 
the  extreme  opposite  of  the  new  heart,  whose  law  is  to 
esteem  others  better  than  ourselves. 

I  was  struck  with  this  years  ago,  in  a  revival  that  oc- 
curred in  a  country  town  in  the  State  of  New  York.  The 
preacher,  a  godly  brother,  though  not  educated  in  this  truth 
above  the  community  in  which  he  lived,  was  inviting  sinners 
to  the  altar.  Seeing  some  of  his  congregation  urging  the 
few  of  this  class  present  to  go  forward,  the  thought  dimly 
struck  him  that  they  were  included  in  "  all  the  world  "  whom 
they  were  singing  about  as  being  invited  by  Christ.  So  he 
said  at  the  close  of  his  invitation,  "  If  there  are  any  colored 
persons  present  who  have  souls,  let  them  come  forward  also." 
To  such  a  request  no  colored  person  who  had  a  soul  would 
be  apt  to  respond.  The  same  brother,  in  summing  up  the 
fruits  of  the  revival,  announced  to  the  church  that  so  many 
"had  been  converted,  and  John,  Jane,  and  Dinah,  colored 
persons."  He  was  unconsciously  but  correctly  conforming 
to  the  practice  of  our  church. 

This  distinction  is  the  primum  mobile  of  all  our  weakness. 
Had  we  boldly  taken  the  ground  of  Paul  at  the  beginning, 
refused  to  know  white  or  black,  bond  or  free,  in  the  Church, 
made  emancipated  slaves  our  preachers  and  bishops,  as  he 
did  Onesimus,  mingled  the  whole  in  one  pure  and  holy 
brotherhood,  we  should  never  have  met  with  the  difficulties 
we  have.  We  should  have  grown  less  yet  more.  Our  pro- 
slavery  foes  would  not  have  been  as  they  have  been,  and 
still  arc,  those  of  our  own  household.  Our  strength  would 
have  increased  uniformly,  steadily,  mightily.  As  it  is,  it 
23 


354        THE    STATE   A   CHRISTIAN   BROTHERHOOD. 

has  been  as  it  has.  Let  us  go  back  to  first  principles.  Let 
us  cling  to  the  corner-stone  of  Jesus  Christ,  the  Brother 
alike  of  all  men,  the  Brother  especially  of  the  poor,  the  op- 
pressed, and  the  despised.  • 

2.  This  resolution  involves  home  duties  also.     Some  of 
our  churches  yet  permit  invidious  distinctions  to  be  made 
between  His  brethren  in  the  house  and  at  the  table  of  the 
Lord.     They  compel  a  portion  of  His  family  to  sit  together 
in  an  ignoble  place,  and  to  come  together  to  His  feast  after 
they  have   concluded  their   banquet.     Perhaps   they  think 
these  servants  of  men  are  also  servants  of  the  Lord,  and  are 
therefore  properly  placed  at  the  last  table.     I  am  afraid  they, 
much  more  than  their  fellow-servants,  are  indeed  the  ser- 
vants of  the  Lord.     How  do  James  the  Just's   searching 
words  try  our  reins  and  our  heart  in  the  light  of  such  con- 
duct.     "  My  brethren,  hold  not  the  grace  of  our  Lord  Jesus 
Christ  with   respect  of  persons  ;  for  if  ye  say  unto  the  " 
white  member  or  visitor,  "  Sit  thou  here  in  a  good  place,  and 
say  unto  "  your  colored  brother,   "  Stand  thou  there,  or  sit 
here  under  my  footstool,  are  ye  not  then  partial  in  yourselves, 
and  become  approvers  of  evil  thoughts  ?     Hearken,  my  be- 
loved brethren,  hath  not  God  chosen  the  poor  of  this  world, 
rich  in  faith,  and  heirs  of  the  kingdom  which  He  hath  prom- 
ised  to  them  that  love  Him  ?     But  ye  have  despised  the 
poor  ! "     Arid  that  too,  because  of  a  complexion  God  gave 
them,  and  as  handsome  in  His  eyes  as  yours  in  yours.      We 
should  cease  to  allow  this  evil  to  be  done.     It  should  be 
instantly  abolished  from  every  church  in  this  Conference. 

3.  We   should  also  abolish   every   colored    church.      All 
should  melt  into  each  other.     All  ye  are  brethren. 

4.  These  flourish  for  another  and  yet  worse  reason,  which 
springs  from  the  same  false  root.      God  is  pleased  to  call 
some  men  to  preach  His  gospel  that  are  much  nearer  than 
we   are  to  the  complexion   and  lineage   of  Christ  and  His 
apostles.     He  pours  grace  upon  their  lips,  so  that  all  the 


THE   MISSION   OF   AMERICA.  355 

world  runs  afteg-  them.  But  we  call  them  negroes,  or  the 
more  classic  and  more  contemptuous  word  by  which  we 
designate  this  class,  even  if  the  Lord's  anointed.  They 
cannot  minister  to  white  people.  They  cannot  associate 
with  their  not  always  whiter  clerical  brethren.  Wp  have  no 
humility  by  which  we  love  to  kneel  down  and  wash  their 
feet,  though  that  very  deed  was  done  by  Christ,  on  this  very 
night,  to  teach  us  this  very  lesson.  It  is  not  learned  yet. 

We  compromise  with  conscience  by  setting  off  others  of 
our  brethren  to  whom  they  shall  minister.  Thus  America 
presents  a  spectacle  seen  nowhere  else  in  Christendom,  — 
seen  never  before  in  Christendom,  —  of  a  body  of  poor  be- 
lievers, compelled  by  their  brethren  to  worship  by  them- 
selves under  the  ban  of  public  infamy,  and  a  body  of  God's 
ministers,  in  like  manner,  compelled  to  make  full  proof  of 
their  ministry  under  like  disgrace.  I  say  it  is  not  seen  nor 
known  anywhere  else  in  the  world,  past  or  to-day.  James 
thought  he  had  touched  the  bottom  of  sinful  distinctions 
when  he  dwelt  on  the  partialities  displayed  in  the  same 
church.  What  would  he  have  thought  had  the  Holy  Ghost 
required  him  to  give  warning  to  Christians  against  pushing 
a  portion  of  their  brethren,  and  of  their  ministry  also,  into 
separate  churches  —  separated  for  no  fault  of  their  own,  for 
no  leprosy  or  disease  that  whitened  skins,  but  because 
of  a  heaven-daring  pride  on  the  part  of  their  kindred. 

This  must  be  changed  if  we  hope  for  the  blessing  of 
God.  The  ministry  must  lead  in  the  change.  The  proudest 
churches  in  Europe  are  open  to  every  body.  You  will  find 
the  beggar  and  the  noble  worshiping  side  by  side  at  West- 
minster, the  Madaleine,  St.  Peter's,  everywhere.  A  minis- 
ter is  a  minister  there,  no  matter  of  what  blood  or  color. 
They  are  not  without  their  prejudices,  even  against  color. 
But  they  do  not  carry  it  to  our  extreme.  On  the  contrary, 
they  sometimes  bravely  overcome  it.  See  Rev.  Mr.  Martin, 
of  Boston,  invited  to  two  churches  in  London.  The  most 


356         THE    STATE   A   CHRISTIAN   BROTHERHOOD. 

eloquent  preacher  of  his  denomination,  and  probably  of  any 
denomination  in  our  city,  able  to  fill  the  Tremont  Temple 
every  Sunday,  he  was  stuck  in  a  poor  little  house  in  the 
Pariah  quarter,  and  the  Temple  remained  empty.  Now  he 
is  the  welcomed  pastor  of  a  church  of  Englishmen  —  the 
proudest  blood  in  Europe  to-day.  Should  a  brother  of  like 
graces  approach  our  doors,  what  would  we  do  with  our 
resolution  ?  Stand  by  it,  should  we  not  ?  Admit  him  as 
our  perfect  equal,  and  cast  the  weight  of  our  influence  in 
favor  of  his  receiving  such  a  station  as  his  talents  merit. 

That  this  is  the  question  of  the  age,  a  multitude  of  signs 
show.  We  cannot  pass  over  one.  From  it  learn  all.  You 
are  aware  of  the  great  impression  produced  on  the  millions  of 
people  from  all  parts  of  the  world,  at  the  Great  Exhibition, 
by  Story's  statue  of  the  African  prophetess  —  the  Lybica 
Sybilla,  as  he  called  it.  It  took  its  place  as  the  greatest 
contribution  of  genius ;  and  critics,  in  London  reviews, 
discussed  with  much  learning  its  relations  to  Greek  and 
Egyptian  art ;  when,  lo !  it  appears  from  Mrs.  Stowe's 
article  in  the  Atlantic,  that  it  is  but  the  statue  of  a  New 
York  slave,  seventy  years  of  age.  She-  is  known  to  many 
here  —  an  old  John  Street  Methodist,  who  cannot  read,  but 
who  can  do  what  is  far  better,  she  can  talk.  Sojourner 
Truth  is  the  rude,  ungainly  name  of  a  rude,  ungainly  African 
of  the  purest  negro  blood,  who  is  the  model  of  a  statue  sur- 
passing the  Moses  of  Michael  Angelo ;  for  that  is  but  a 
marvel  of  genius  ;  this  is  the  gospel  for  this  generation  —  a 
new  sermon  of  Christ's  in  stone.  Europeans  of  every  rank, 
with  their  yet  haughtier  American  fellows,  like  Joseph's 
brethren,  bow  down  to  her  whom  they  had  sold  into  bondage 
—  to  all  her  race  in  her. 

But  I  have  long  since  wearied  you.  I  shall  be  happy  if  I 
have  inflicted  no  heavier  burden.  I  could  not  say  less  and 
fulfil  the  injunctions  of  the  text.  I  feel  that  America  is  the 
center  of  the  history  of  the  world  to-day.  For  good  or  evil, 


THE   MISSION   OF  AMERICA.  357 

in  wrath  or  mercy,  God  has  lifted  her  up  before  all  men  — 
He  has  endowed  her  with  preeminent  privileges  and  op- 
portunities ;  an  estate  of  wondrous  breadth  and  beauty  ; 
fundamental  ideas  of  civil  and  social  life,  that  have  been  only 
the  dreams  of  good  and  wise  men  in  all  other  ages  and 
places  —  a  people  knowing  good  and  evil,  full  of  enter- 
prise, of  resources,  of  capacity,  individual  and  concrete, 
such  as  all  nations  else  have  never  seen  ;  an  intelligence 
diffused  like  the  light ;  a  quickness  of  conscience  that  is 
like  fire  shut  up  in  the  bones.  Over  such  a  nation,  with 
such  a  heritage,  in  such  an  exaltation,  what  infinite  respon- 
sibilities hang  !  To  be  its  guides  and  molders,  as  God  has 
made  His  Church  and  ministry,  is  a  duty  from  which  they 
may  well  shrink  —  of  which  they  may  justly  be  proud. 

Our  liberties  must  be  preserved  and  extended  only  through 
the  Church.  And  the  Church  must  be  kept  in  its  first  estate 
and  advanced  to  its  complete  perfection  chiefly  through  its 
ministry.  Upon  you',  then,  as  its  divinely  appointed  of- 
ficers, comes  the  responsibility.  The  ministry,  the  servants 
of  the  Church,  are  its  authorized  and  responsible  officers. 
God,  not  man,  made  the  Church.  He,  not  man,  officers  it. 
And  He  holds  us  accountable  to  Him,  not  to  our  fellow- 
Christians,  much  less  to  our  fellow-men,  for  the  manner  in 
which  we  discharge  that  high  office.  If  we  bow  down  to  them, 
and  serve  them  ;  if,  like  Aaron,  at  command  of  the  people, 
we  make  golden  calves  for  their  idolatry,  their  blood  will  He 
require  at  our  hands.  "  See,  //'  not  the  Church,  nor  the 
Conference,  nor  the  bishops,  "  /  have  set  thee  a  watchman 
on  the  walls  of  Zion,"  on  the  towers  of  time. 

It  is  but  for  a  moment  that  we  stand  here.  Death  soon 
shoots  us  down.  A  more  insatiate  archer  may  first  slay  us, 
if  we  are  not  vigilant  and  courageous.  It  is  but  a  little  step 
from  our  post  to  the  headquarters  of  our  Commander. 
Hither  we  must  ceaselessly  go  for  orders.  We  must  pro- 
claim them  at  the  head  of  our  several  regiments,  and  see 


358        THE    STATE   A   CHRISTIAN   BROTHERHOOD. 

that  the  subordinate  officers  and  soldiers  observe  them. 
We  must  proclaim  them  to  the  hosts  of  rebellion,  without 
fear,  without  bitterness,  without  favor,  without  weariness. 

Our  encouragements  may  come  partly  from  the  Church, 
but  preeminently  from  God.  It  is  a  good  and  blessed 
reward  for  one  to  have  his  praise  in  all  the  churches.  It  is 
far  better  to  have  the  approval  of  God. 

There  are  times  when  every  Church  needs  to  be  lifted  up 
out  of  itself.  The  Seven  Churches  required  such  treatment. 
They  were  settling  down  into  worldliness.  They  must  be 
stirred  up,  or  they  sleep  the  sleep  that  knows  no  waking. 
He  is  seldom  popular  who  is  set  for  this  work.  Paul  had 
to  say  to  his  Corinthian  brethren,  with  almost  an  air  of 
hauteur,  "  With  me  it  is  a  very  small  thing  that  I  should  be 
judged  of  you  or  of  man's  judgment."  Edwards  was  driven 
forth  into  the  wilderness,  and  among  savages,  by  his  aristo- 
cratic church  of  Northampton,  after  it  had  been  blessed, 
under  his  labors,  with  the  greatest  re'vival  it  had  ever  en- 
joyed, simply  because  he  scourged  a  popular  sin.  They 
show  you  the  narrow,  low  door  beside  the  chancel  of  the 
Epworth  Church  out  of  which  John  AVesley  was  thrust,  as 
Christ  out  of  Nazareth,  by  his  fellow-townsmen,  led  by 
his  father's  successor  and  his  father's  vestrymen.  St. 
Mary's,  the  university  Church  of  Oxford,  yet  testifies,  in  its 
Christless  vibration  between  Romanistic  formalism  and  Broad 
Church  rationalism,  to  the  crimes  of  those  who,  a  century 
and  a  quarter  ago,  expelled  from  her  pulpit  the  same  great 
advocate,  because  he  proclaimed  that  central  truth  of 
Luther's  preaching,  and  of  a  vital  Christianity,  Justification 
by  Faith. 

Yet  these  men  were  not  alone ;  nor  will  you  be,  if 
ordered  to  like  duty.  The  Captain  of  the  Hosts  of  the  Lord 
is  with  you.  His  still,  small  voice  ever  strengthens  you. 

Finally.  To  save  this  land  to  universal  liberty  and  univer- 
sal brotherhood,  supported  by  universal  law  arid  sanctified 


THE   MISSION   OF   AMERICA.  359 

by  universal  piety,  is  to  save  all  lands.  It  may  take  all  our 
sons,  all  our  treasure,  all  our  generation  to  destroy  the 
enemy  that  is  seeking  to  prevent  this  consummation.  It 
may  take  a  longer  time  and  greater  struggles  to  destroy 
the  enemy  within  us,  that  with  profounder  and  more  power- 
ful force  works  for  the  same  diabolical  end.  But  if  we  are 
faithful  to  our  principles  and  our  God,  we  shall  triumph  over 
both.  We  shall  subdue  the  rebellious  host  without  and 
the  rebellious  spirit  within. 

Then  shall  other  nations  behold  the  image  of  the  trans- 
figured Christ  shining  in  our  uplifted  face,  that  will  glow, 
like  that  of  Moses,  with  the  radiance  of  His  divine  coun- 
tenance. European  caste  and  tyranny,  tottering  everywhere 
to  its  downfall,  will  speedily  disappear,  and  the  same 
Christian  union  and  liberty,  "  like  a  sea  of  glory,  will  spread 
from  pole  to  pole." 

"  Half  of  Europe  will  come  to  America  if  you  break  up- 
this  rebellion,"  was  the  last  word  almost  that  was  spoken 
to  me  as  I  was  leaving  the  city  of  Liverpool.  All  of 
America,  in  its  influence,  will  go  to  Europe,  will  go  over 
the  earth,  not  in  the  boastful  spirit  of  national  pride,  but 
in  the  humble  spirit  of  Christian  love.  We  have  nothing  we 
have  not  received.  We  shall  then  only  be  a  member  of  an 
equal,  universal,  happy  family,  the  family  of  Christ. 

However  dim  and  distant  that  glorious  hour  may  seem  to 
our  weary-watching  eyes,  we  are  required  to  labor  for  it, 
in  private  and  public,  in  ourselves,  the  Church,  the  nation, 
the  world.  May  we  to  that  end,  to-day,  purge  out  the  old 
leaven  of  malice  and  wickedness,  that  we  may.be  a  new 
lump,  sanctified  and  set  apart  for  the  Master's  use.  Then 
shall  this  beautiful  parable  of  the  poet  be  to  us  henceforth 
and  forever  a  blessed  realization  :  — 

"  A  Brahmin  on  a  lotus  pod 
Once  wrote  the  holy  name  of  God. 


360         THE   STATE   A   CHRISTIAN   BROTHERHOOD. 

Then,  planting  it,  he  asked  in  prayer, 
For  some  new  fruit  unknown  and  fair. 

A  slave  near  by,  who  bore  a  load, 
Fell  fainting  on  the  dusty  road. 

The  Brahmin  pitying,  straightway  ran, 
And  lifted  up  the  fallen  man. 

The  deed  scarce  done,  he  stood  aghast, 
At  touching  one  beneath  his  caste. 

'  Behold,'  he  cried,  '  I  am  unclean, 

My  hands  have  clasped  the  vile  and  mean.' 

God  saw  the  shadow  on  his  face, 
And  wrought  a  miracle  of  grace. 

The  buried  seed  arose  from  death, 
And  bloomed  and  fruited  at  his  breath. 

The  stalk  bore  up  a  leaf  of  green, 
Whereon  these  mystic  words  were  seen  : 

FlEST,  COUNT  MEN  ALL  OF  EQUAL  CASTE, 
THEN  COUNT  THYSELF  THE  LEAST  AND  LAST. 

The  Brahmin,  with  bewildered  brain, 
Beheld  the  will  of  God  writ  plain. 

Transfigured  then,  in  sudden  light, 
The  slave  stood  sacred  in  his  sight. 

Thereafter,  in  the  Brahmin's  breast, 
Abode  God's  peace,  and  he  was  blest." 


THE  CHUECH  AND  THE  NEGRO/ 


'  HE  Church  Anti-Slavery  Society  :  —  is  not  that 
tautological  ?  A  repetition  that  ought  to  be,  if 
it  is  not,  vain  ?  The  first  includes  the  last.  If 
it  is  truly  the  Church,  it  is  also  by  necessity  the 
Anti-Slavery  Society ;  for  the  greater  ever  includes  the  less. 
Thus  it  was  when  its  creed  and  sacraments  were  first 
given.  The  Hebrews  had  two  articles  of  faith  —  anti- 
idolatry  and  anti-slavery.  The  first  had  been  taught  them 
by  the  divine  miracles,  the  last  by  their  own  suffering  and 
salvation.  Bunsen  says  that  "  History  was  born  on  the 
night  of  Exodus."  So  was  Abolitionism  and  the  Church 
as  a  congregation  of  believers.  These  twain  were  twins. 

Never  before  had  human  slavery  been  abolished  by  divine 
decree  ;  never  since,  by  a  single  act,  on  so  grand  a  scale, 
save  by  the  decree  of  last  January.  But  the  difference  be- 
tween the  two  was  the  simple,  yet  all-important  difference, 
between  a  proclamation  and  an  execution.  God  abolished 
Hebrew  slavery.  He  set  His  millions  free.  He  made  their 
enemies  to  sink  like  lead  in  the  mighty  waters.  We  only 

*  An  address  delivered  in  Tremont  Temple,  before  the  Church  Anti- 
Slavery  Society,  June  10,  1863. 

(301) 


362        THE  CHURCH  AND  THE  NEGRO. 

S(w  ours  are  free,  and  still  but  half  protect  the  freedmen, 
even  if  in  our  armies,  from  worse  than  Pharaoh's  assaults. 

The  Old  Testament  cannot,  therefore,  indorse  human  bond- 
age. It  was  based  on  human  freedom.  Its  original  people 
were,  by  creation  and  necessity,  abolitionists.  While  as 
yet  no  glimmering  of  the  hideousness  of  slavery  had  dawned 
upon  the  moral  sense  of  the  world,  God  revealed  its  char- 
acter by  emancipating  a  race. 

These  freedmen  He  organized  into  a  nation.  For  the 
corner-stone  of  their  constitution  He  placed  Abolitionism. 
On  the  top  of  Sinai,  before  He  enunciated  a  moral  or  a  civil 
institute, — the  higher  and  the  lower  law, — He  proclaims  His 
abolitionism.  "I  am  the  Lord  thy  God,  which  brought  thee 
out  of  the  land  of  Egypt,  OUT  OF  THE  HOUSE  OF  BONDAGE." 

His  edicts  not  only  abolish  slavery,  they  abolish  caste. 
The  laws  of  Moses  are  the  essence  of  democracy.  In  all 
eastern  and  all  old  countries  there  are  families  that  have 
served  for  generations,  as  there  are  those  that  have  ruled. 
To  prevent  this  tendency,  God  proclaims  every  seven  years, 
and  at  the  outside,  every  fifty  years,  a  complete  abolishment 
of  such  relations.  No  father  shall  entail  his  servitude,  how- 
ever slight,  on  his  children.  Alt  persons  are  equal.  Had 
these  laws  been  faithfully  executed — which  they  never  were 
—  they  would  have  preserved  Israel  from  a  monarchy,  and 
so  from  ruin.  This  perpetuation  of  the  inferior  status  of  a 
family,  from  generation  to  generation,  is  the  distinguished 
peculiarity  of  England.  It  is  the  stronghold  of  its  aristoc- 
racy and  its  throne.  It  is  against  the  pattern  of  civil  soci- 
ety given  in  the  Mount,  which  was  a  democracy  of  equal 
freemen. 

It  may  be  said  that  they  were  permitted  to  enslave  the 
heathen.  Not  so.  Their  time  and  labor  were  bought  for  a 
season,  as  was  that  of  the  poorer  of  our  ancestors  in  the 
early  emigrations  to  this  continent  ;  but  they  could  not 
make  a  contract  that  held  over  seven  years,  except  in 


THE  CHUKCH  AND  THE  NEGRO.         363 

most  rare  cases,  when  the  heathen  were  permitted  to  bind 
themselves,  not  their  masters  to  bind  them,  for  a  lifetime. 
The  Jews  could  not  then  sell  these  self-bound  servants,  nor 
had  they  power  over  their  children  ;  nor  could  they  hold 
them  a  moment  after  they  acknowledged  the  true  faith. 

HOAV  long  would  slavery  have  existed  in  the  South  if 
these  three  conditions  had  been  imposed  upon  it  ?  How 
long,  if  the  last  only  had  been  adhered  to  ?  It  was  so 
once  in  Maryland.  The  baptized  slave  became  a  free  man  ; 
now  he  is  sold  for  a  higher  price.  By  the  law  of  Moses, 
as  rendered  by  these  critics,  the  masters  should  be  slaves 
of  their  slaves,  for  they  are  by  far  the  worse  heathen. 

How  profane,  in  the  light  of  these  facts,  have  been  the 
ceaseless  utterances  of  the  Southern  pulpits,  and  the  too 
general  utterance  of  the  Northern,  that  the.  Israelites  estab- 
lished slavery.  Their  laws  were  against  it,  their  animus 
against  it,  their  origin  against  it,  their  God  against  it. 

The  New  Testament  is  equally  anti-slavery.  It  is  more 
spoken  against  than  theatric  exhibitions  or  gladiatorial 
shows.  These  are  never  specifically  condemned,  though 
they  were  universal.  They  are  frequently  employed  to 
illustrate  the  Christian  life.  The  apostle  refers  to  an  expe- 
rience of  the  latter  class  among  the  beasts  of  Ephesus,  with 
no  hint  that  it  was  immoral.  So  is  it  almost  speechless 
against  the  sin  of  war,  then  universal,  and  inspired  solely 
by  lust  of  robbery  or  power,  and  unspeakably  cruel  against 
the  innocent.  Yet  see  how  John  seems  to  revel  in  it !  Had 
he  spoken  thus  of  slavery,  what  a  perversion  would  its 
monomaniacs  have  made  of  his  illustrations  !  Slavery  is 
condemned  more  frequently  and  more  severely  than  them 
all. 

The  New  Testament  Gentile  Church  was  comprised 
almost  as  exclusively  of  slaves  as  was  the  Mosaic  Church, 
—  as  has  been  the  real  Church  of  Christ  in  the  South.  The 
lowest  class  chiefly  embraced  it.  The  Abyssinian  eunuch 


364        THE  CHURCH  AND  THE  NEGRO. 

was  an  Ethiopian  slave.  They  of  Caesar's  household  were 
largely  Caesar's  slaves.  Why  should  the  apostles  preach 
to  them  of  the  evils  of  slavery  ?  They  knew  it  by  a  fearful 
experience.  We  have  prated  loudly  about  the  divine  right 
of  slavery,  but  there  was  one  class  of  the  population  to 
whom  we  never  addressed  such  remarks  —  the  slaves  them- 
selves. How  superbly  foolish  would  have  been  such  preach- 
ing. Equally  foolish  would  have  been  like  preaching  on 
the  part  of  Paul  and  his  associates.  Paul  rejoiced  in  his 
freedom.  The  Centurion  declares  how  much  it  cost  him. 
It  was  a  subject  that  was  evidently  one  of  intense  interest 
to  both  parties.  The  very  fact  of  Paul's  being  free,  and 
proudly  availing  himself  of  its  privileges  in  avoiding  pun- 
ishments to  which  his  brethren  were  often  subjected,  speaks 
volumes  as  to  the  opinion  of  the  early  Church  on  this 
question. 

More  than  this,  the  New  Testament  especially  enjoins 
upon  the  master  to  give  his  slave  liberty,  and  upon  the 
slave  to  run  away  if  he  has  a  fair  chance  of  thus  securing 
his  freedom. 

Tf  a  sympathizer  with  slavery  happened  to  be  a  preacher 
to  slaves,  as  too  many  have  been,  and  he  should  scatter 
among  his  parishioners  this  sentence  of  Paul's,  "If  ye  may 
be  free,  use  it  rather,"  how  would  they  understand  it  ? 
How  would  their  masters,  if  they  should  hear  of  it,  treat 
such  a  circulator  of  the  Scriptures  without  note  or  com- 
ment ?  The  frequency  of  like  remarks  by  the  apostles 
gives  tone  and  character  to  all  the  New  Testament.  It  is 
in  marked  contrast  with  all  cotemporary  literature. 

Slavery  was  abolished  in  Europe  by  the  Church.  She. 
sold  the  sacred  vessels  from  her  altar  to  redeem  her  breth- 
ren. She  bought  your  yellow-haired  fathers,  chained  cap- 
tives in  the  market-place  of  Rome,  from  their  dark-skinned 
"  owners,"  who,  undoubtedly,  entertained  very  strong  prej- 
udices against  their  red  locks  and  white  faces. 


THE  CHURCH  AND  THE  NEGKQ.         365 

She  would  have  abolished  aristocracy  and  monarchy  had 
she  not  been  betrayed  into  an  oligarchy  herself,  and  so  be- 
came the  natural  ally  and  servile  tool  of  kindred  castes  in 
the  State. 

"  The  Church  Anti-Slavery  Society  "  is,  therefore,  a  ver- 
bal repetition.  If  we  appeal  to  its  origin  and  early  history, 
it  is  a  real  repetition.  Alas  !  that  it  is  not  in  its  latest  and 
American  history.  It  is  too  late  now  to  repent.  The  mis- 
sion of  abolishing  slavery  was  offered  to  the  Church  of  Amer- 
ica, as  it  was  to  that  of  Europe.  Theirs  was  faithful  to 
their  trust,  ours  not.  And  so  God  has  been  compelled  to 
take  the  work  into  His  own  hands.  He  has  poured  out 
upon  us  the  plague  of  war  and  its  abounding  miseries,  be- 
cause His  Church  would  not  testify  and  toil  for  the  salvation 
of  their  brethren  ;  because  it  arrayed  itself  by  indifference 
or  by  open  violence  against  its  brethren.  He  had  not  forgot- 
ten the  preamble  of  His  Sinai  declaration  of  Hebrew  indepen- 
dence. He  had  not  forgotten  His  like  proclamation  at  the 
beginning  of  His  ministry  in  Nazareth.  He  had  not  forgotten 
our  declarations  both  as  a  nation  and  as  churches.  We  had. 

I  do  not  say  that  all  the  Church  was  silent  and  sinful. 
Many  testified,  as  local  bodies,  as  individual  preachers, 
striving  according  to  His  working,  which  worked  in  them 
mightily  to  save  the  Church  from  apostasy  and  silence,  their 
brethren  from  slavery,  and  their  nation  from  war  and  de- 
struction. But  no  great  ecclesiastical  body,  as  such,  engaged 
in  this  work.  They  almost  unanimously  strove  against  it. 
They  resisted  those  who  sought  to  bring  them  into  active 
and  determined  hostility  to  the  sin.  They  wilfully  extracted 
the  vigor  from  resolutions  they  could  not  table,  and  care- 
fully abstained  from  the  execution  of  the  tame  decrees  they 
were  compelled  to  declare  by  pressure  of  outward  fear,  and 
not  of  inward  inspiration. 

This  is  a  painful  but  most  patent  truth.  What  is  written 
is  written.  We  cannot  recall  the  past.  Our  record  of  the 


366        THE  CHURCH  AND  THE  NEGRO. 

past  generation,  as  the  American  Church,  is  laid  up  in  the 
archives  of  history.  It  will  be  collated  and  kept,  with  the 
records  of  other  eras,  places,  and  branches  of  the  Church. 
It  is  laid  up  on  high.  Where  is  the  bishop  who,  like  Greg- 
ory of  Rome,  has  used  the  treasures  of  the  Church  for  the 
emancipation  of  our  enslaved  brethren  ?  Where  is  the  synod, 
assembly,  or  conference  of  a  whole  Church  that  has  ex- 
pelled the  "owners"  of  their  own  members  from  their  com- 
munion, proclaimed  themselves,  exultingly  and  ceaselessly, 
abolitionists,  and  uttered  the  decree  of  God  without  waver- 
ing, and  with  divine  boldness,  in  the  ears  of  a  slumbering 
and  sinning  nation  ? 

We  ought  not  to  have  spent  a  dollar  for  missionary  work 
abroad.  It  ought  all  to  have  gone  for  the  manumission  of 
slaves  at  home.  Such  testimony,  backed  by  such  liberality, 
would  have  cleansed  the  land  of  its  curse,  placed  the  Church, 
where  she  is  not,  far  above  all  rivalries  of  anti-church  re- 
formers, and  given  her  a  position  and  influence  that  to-day 
would  have  covered  this  land  with  the  fullness  of  millennial 
glory.  How  painful  the  contrast.  See  it  in  that  perfect 
daguerreotype  of  ourselves  —  the  Church  of  Thyatira. 
"  These  things,  saith  the  Son  of  God,  who  hath  eyes  like  a 
flame  of  fire.  ...  I  know  thy  works,  and  charity,  and  ser- 
vice, and  faith,  and  thy  patience,  and  thy  works,  and  the 
last  to  be  more  than  the  first.  Notwithstanding,  I  have  a 
few  things  against  thee,  because  thou  sufferest  that  woman 
Jezebel,  which  calleth  herself  a  prophetess  "  (that  is,  a 
Christian  minister),  "  to  teach  and  seduce  my  servants  to 
commit  fornication.  .  .  .  And  I  gave  her  space  to  repent 
of  her  fornication,  and  she  repented  not.  Behold  I  will  cast 
her  into  a  bed,  and  them  that  commit  adultery  with  her  into 
great  tribulation,  except  they  repent  of  their  deeds.  And  I 
will  kill  her  children  with  death,  and  all  the  churches  shall 
know  that  I  am  lie  which  searcheth  the  reins  and  the  hearts." 

The  churches  and  the  world  have  known  it.     The  South- 


THE  CHURCH  AND  THE  NEGRO.        367 

ern  Church,  the  chief  transgressor  with  this  Jezebel,  has 
suffered  the  most  with  her.  We  have  partially  repented, 
and  so  have  partially  escaped. 

It  is  useless  to  dwell  constantly  on  the  past.  It  is  right 
to  repent,  to  see  what  might  have  been,  and  to  lament  what 
is.  Yet  it  is  wrong  to  pause  there.  The  future  is  yet  be- 
fore us.  The  sincerity  of  our  repentance  must  be  shown  by 
the  manner  in  which  we  fill  that  future. 

The  Church,  as  an  Anti-Slavery  Society,  has  but  little 
work  left  for  it  to  do.  The  red  right  arm  of  God  is  achiev- 
ing the  redemption  which  He  would  fain  have  wrought 
through  his  Church.  Yet  there  is  a  mission  before  us  as 
great  as  that  we  have  neglected.  It  is  possible  for  us 
to  cover  the  shame  we  cannot  obliterate  with  valor  and 
vigor  in  a  service  that  peculiarly  belongs  to  the  Church  of 
Christ. 

"  What,"  you  exclaim,  "  are  we  to  have  no  rest  from  this 
agitation  ?  Shall  we  not  be  permitted  to  devote  ourselves 
exclusively  to  personal  and  ecclesiastical  edification,  with- 
out further  intrusion  of  this  offensive  theme  ?  "  Nay,  the 
Church  has  no  pause  in  her  mission,  any  more  than  her 
Maker  has  in  His.  "  My  Father  worketh  hitherto,  and  I 
work,"  —  she,  as  well  as  her  Master,  must  ever  say,  — 

"  Beneath  the  solemn  arch 
Naught  resteth  nor  is  still." 

To  purge  herself  and  the  world  of  sin,  to  build  up  human 
society  after  the  model  of  the  heavenly  society,  demand 
unceasing  effort.  The  real  cause  of  all  this  woe  is  far  from 
cured  by  universal  emancipation. 

The  slave  is  gone,  the  negro  remains.  Many  abolition- 
ists, and  all  mere  unionists  and  partisans,  have  fancied  their 
sole  work  was  to  liberate  the  slaves.  It  is  their  least  work. 
We  are  to  be  made  one  family.  There  are  feelings  and 
usages  contrary  to  this,  almost  as  abhorrent,  yea,  every 


368        THE  CHURCH  AND  THE  NEGRO. 

whit  as  abhorrent  in  the  sight  of  God,  as  the  ownership 
of  man,  which  lie  in  our  hearts  and  in  the  customs  of 
society  a  hideous  lump,  "  heavy  as  lead,  and  deep  almost 
as  life." 

The  basis  of  slavery  is  caste.  That  feeling  of  caste  yet 
prevails  exceedingly  over  all  the  land.  The  blackness  cov- 
ers our  hearts  deeper  than  it  does  the  faces  of  our  brethren. 
It  must  be  removed.  Nowhere  in  the  world  except  with 
us  does  it  have  powerful  dominion.  In  Asia,  Mexico,  West 
Indies,  the  Southern  States,  it  is  practically  unknown.  It 
has  no  real  existence  in  us.  Black  coverings  are  preferred 
for  the  top  of  the  head,  as  the  abundance  of  advertisements 
of  hair  dyes  testify.  How  much  worse  is  the  hair  than  the 
face  ?  The  black-gloved,  and  so  black-skinned  hand,  is 
esteemed  comely  ;  so  is  the  black-clothed,  and  therefore 
practically,  black-skinned  body.  A  strip  of  white  linen 
around  the  neck  and  on  the  breast,  and  a  bit  of  white  flesh 
between  the  forehead  and  the  black-bearded  mouth,  are  the 
only  specks  of  Caucasianism  in  an  American  gentleman  in 
full  dress.  From  hat  to  boots,  Paris  declares,  and  Broad- 
way confesses,  an  "inky  suit  of  customary  black"  is  the 
requisite  of  a  gentleman.  And  yet  we  pretend  that  we 
have  a  natural  antipathy  to  color.  How  foolish  !  A  black 
man  in  a  white  vest  is  more  of  a  white  man  than  we  in  our 
fashionable  costume. 

The  Southern  States  will  soon  settle  this  problem  when 
peace  and  liberty  prevail  there.  A  Baltimore  gentleman, 
of  the  highest  social  standing,  said  tome,  "that  he  had 
long  advocated  the  admission  of  half  negroes  to  social  equal- 
ity with  their  white  kindred."  That  event  will  come,  and 
with  it  the  inevitable  recognition  of  the  other  half  of  their 
blood,  and  so  of  the  whole  of  the  attainted  color.  And 
when  Southern  gentlemen  lounge  through  our  Saratogas 
and  Newports  with  their  elegant  quadroon  wives  on  their 
arms,  we,  who  follow  fashion  more  than  principle,  will  be 


THE  CHURCH  AND  THE  NEGRO.         369 

as  profusely  eulogistic  and  servilely  imitative  as  we  have 
been  in  commending  and  copying  their  diabolic  contempt. 

It  is  unchristian  :  they  are  our  brethren  and  sisters  ;  they 
should  be  treated  as  such.  Dare  you  insult  your  own  sister 
for  any  real  or  seeming  deformity  ?  Dare  you  expel  her 
from  the  family  circle  ?  Would  you  allow  another  to  taunt 
her  with  her  sinless  misfortune  ?  How  dare  the  Church  to 
allow  others  to  treat  thus  her  sisters  and  brethren  ;  nay,  how 
dare  she  to  treat  them  herself  as  she  has,  and  yet  hope  for 
the  blessing  of  God  ?  "I  thank  Thee  that  I  am  not  as  this 
negro,"  has  been  our  daily  prayer  in  the  temple  of  God. 
Have  we  gone  down  to  our  houses  justified  of  God  ?  Our 
first  duty  is  to  make  ourselves  one  with  these,  as  Christ's 
first  duty  was  to  make  Himself  one  with  us.  He  became 
like  unto  His  brethren ;  so  must  we.  Will  the  Church  seize 
the  opportunity,  trample  out  this  prejudice,  and  thus  deliver 
herself  from  destruction  ?  I  cannot  say  yes  ;  can  you  ?  I 
am  afraid  she  will  not. 

Both  army  and  people  will  give  the  highest  military  and 
political  honors  to  the  black  man  before  the  Church  con- 
cedes him  equal  rights  with  his  brethren.  The  regiment 
that  is  to  inaugurate  the  era  of  real  democracy  in  our  land 
will  march  through  our  streets  to-morrow.*  We  have  not 
yet  dared  to  make  its  officers  of  the  same  blood  as  its  pri- 
vates ;  but  we  shall.  We  could  to-day  without  awakening 
any  feelings  of  animosity.  I  asked  Mr.  Douglass,  when  at 
the  camp  the  other  day,  why  he  had  not  command  of  the 
regiment  ?  "  Don't  insult  me,"  he  replied.  "  I  have  had 
hundreds  of  applications  from  white  gentlemen  to  use  my 
influence  to  get  them  commissions,  but  they  tell  me  the 
times  are  not  yet  ripe  for  commissions  to  our  people."  They 
soon  will  be.  They  have  had  straps  long  enough  upon 
their  backs  ;  it  is  time  they  had  them  on  their  shoulders. 

*  See  Note  XIII. 
24= 


370        THE  CHURCH  AND  THE  NEGRO. 

And  yet  that  day,  I  fear,  will  find  the  Church  fast  bound  in 
these  chains  of  Satan.  Frederick  Douglass  may  be  Major 
General,  may  be  Senator  Douglass,  representing  the  Empire 
State  in  Congress,  and,  as  I  heard  a  New  Yorker  say,  "the 
only  Senator  Douglass  that  will  be  known  in  history,"  be- 
fore any  one  of  his  clerical  brethren  will  be  settled  over 
such  a  congregation  as  this.  They  are  already  in  the  bar 
of  this  city,  in  the  medical  fraternity  of  this  State,  the 
acknowledged  equals,  often  the  associates  of  our  first  law- 
yers and  doctors.  Into  what  conference,  association,  or 
synod  are  they  admitted  as  co-workers  and  brethren  ? 

God  will  chastise  the  Church  if  she  persists  in  the  hard- 
ness and  impenitence  of  heart,  by  not  only  taking,  as  Christ 
threatens,  the  vineyard  from  her,  but  by  giving  it  to  these 
with  whom  she  refuses  to  fraternize.  See  one  token  of  this: 
The  regimental  banner  of  the  Fifty-Fourth  is  a  cross  of 
gold,  with  In  hoc  signo  'vinces  inscribed  beneath.  This  is 
the  first  Christian  banner  that  has  gone  into  the  war.  It  is 
the  first  Christian  flag  ever  unfurled  in  the  American  nation. 
It  is  the  oldest  flag  of  Christianity.  Is  it  not  significant  ? 
God  has  thus  made  this  despised  class  the  leaders  of  the 
nation.  "  He  has  put  down  the  mighty  from  their  seats, 
and  exalted  them  of  low  degree."  The  last  shall  be  first. 
They  are  the  true  Christ-bearers.  They  have  borne  His 
Cross  in  unspeakable  misery,  oppression,  agony,  and  degra- 
dation ;  they  are  now  bearing  it  in  honor,  we  believe  unto 
great  glory.  At  one  step  they  take  precedence  of  the  mil- 
lion of  their  white  forerunners.  No  regiment  in  the  United 
States  has  had  grace  enough  to  put  that  upon  its  standard. 
This  has  :  they  shall  not  lose  their  reward.  They  stand  up 
for  Jesus  ;  He  will  for  them. 

Let  us,  my  friends,  gird  up  our  loins  for  the  great  duties 
of  the  future. 

"  Never  had  Christians  such  high  call  before; 
Never  can  Christians  hope  for  higher  one ; 


THE  CHURCH  AND  THE  NEGRO.        371 

And  if  they  are  but  faithful  to  their  trust, 
Earth  will  remember  them  with  love  and  joy; 
And  O,  far  better,  God  will  not  forget !  " 

Let  the  Church  take  up  this  class,  in  the  infancy  of  its 
freedom,  in  her  arms  and  bless  them.  God  delivered  Israel 
in  a  night ;  it  took  forty  years  to  make  them  a  people  —  so 
may  it  now.  It  is  a  work  that  will  bless  us  more  than  them. 
He  would  have  done  that  work  in  two  years  had  that  people 
been  willing  to  cooperate  with  Him.  So  will  He  hasten 
to  bring  this  people  into  their  promised  land.  They  are 
ready  to  obey  Him.  Will  we  lend  an  accordant  hand  ? 
Will  you  be  co-workers  together  with  God  ?  Will  you 
cease  to  harbor  this  most  unchristian  pride  and  bitterness  ? 
Or  will  you  act  the  Moabite  and  Edomite  to  these  your 
kinsfolk,  wearily  approaching  your  borders,  and  seek  to 
drive  them  back  into  their  bondage,  or  to  keep  them  from 
their  purchased,  and  promised,  and  most  fairly  earned  pos- 
sessions ?  If  you  do  thus  treat  them,  be  assured  that  God 
will  punish  you  as  He  did  those  disdainful  relatives  of  His 
chosen  children.  "God  will  smite  thee,  thou  whited  wall," 
shall  be  said  to  every  white-skinned  scorner  and  repeller  of 
his  browner,  and,  in  this  feeling,  better  brother. 

As  our  Master  gained  a  Name  that  is  above  every  name 
by  humbling  Himself  to  us  outcasts  of  the  universe,  so  will 
the  Church  be  uplifted  by  descending  to  these  her  breth- 
ren. Uproot  and  expel  the  iniquitous  prejudice  from  your 
souls.  Say  with  the  fairest  and  finest  of  Shakspeare's 
heroines,  — 

"  I  see  Othello's  visage  in  his  mind, 
And  to  his  honors  and  his  valiant  parts 
Do  I  my  soul  and  fortunes  consecrate." 

The  hour  is  propitious.  The  great  deeps  of  social  pride 
are  breaking  up.  The  Church  can  take  the  lead  in  these 
divine  movements  if  she  will.  She  can  drive  this  spirit  of 


372        THE  CHURCH  AND  THE  NEGRO. 

caste  from  the  Temple  of  Christ  —  a  spirit  more  mean  and 
sinful  than  that  which  He  scourged  from  His  Father's 
house.  Let  us  cast  it  out  of  our  stores,  our  shops,  our 
families,  our  pews,  arid  our  pulpits,  yea,  and  first  of  all, 
out  of  our  own  hearts.  Then  shall  it  flee  the  land,  and 
the  Church,  redeemed  by  her  valor  and  faithfulness  from 
her  shame  and  sin,  shall  be  without  spot  or  wrinkle,  the 
Lamb's  wife,  winning  and  transforming  the  whole  world 
to  her  own  loveliness,  blessedness,  and  peace. 


THE    WAR    AND    THE    MILLENNIUM.* 


"  THEY  SHALL  MAKE  WAR  WITH  THE  LAMB,  AND  THE  LAMB  SHALL  OVER- 
COME THEM."  —  Revelation  xvii.  14. 

HE  relation  of  the  present  conflict  to  the  Millen- 
nium ?  "A  very  distant  relation,"  you  may  say. 
Can  war  and  the  thousand  years  of  warlessness  be 
kindred  ?  Can  the  bloody  feet  of  battle  be  shod 
with  the  preparation  of  the  gospel  of  peace  ?  Such  is  the 
doctrine  of  the  Word  and  Providence  of  God.  War  is  the 
forerunner  of  the  Gospel,  the  one  who  cries,  "  Prepare  ye 
the  way  of  the  Lord !  "  and  what  he  cries,  he  does.  The 
Bible  describes  the  advent  of  that  hour  as  full  of  the  tumults 
and  deaths  of  strife:  They  may  have  a  Biblical,  a  divine 
conjunction.  Is  ours  one  of  that  class  ?  Is  God  appointing 
and  directing  it  to  the  consummation  of  His  desires,  or  is  it 
simply  a  bloody  feud  without  meaning  or  end  ? 
To  see  this  more  fully,  consider, 

I.  What  is  the  Millennium  ? 

II.  What  are  the  principles  involved  in  this  struggle  ? 

III.  How  are  these  related  in  affinity  and  time  ? 

*  A  sermon  preached  in  Boston,  on  Thanksgiving  Day,  November  26, 
]  863.  The  battle  of  Lookout  Mountain  was  fought  on  the  24th  of  No- 
vomber,  and  that  of  Missionary  Ridge  on  the  25th. 

(373) 


374  THE   WAR  AND   THE   MILLENNIUM. 

I.  What  is  the  Millennium  ?  We  need  not  plunge  into  the 
morass  of  speculation  as  to  the  time  or  circumstances  of  the 
Millennial  year.  Some  fancy  that  it  precedes  the  final  resur- 
rection, some  that  it  follows  it.  Some  believe  the  present 
race  and  earth  will  be  destroyed,  or  rejuvenated  by  miracu- 
lous intervention  in  the  present  order  of  things  ;  others 
believe  that  the  present  race  of  man,  under  its  present  cir- 
cumstances, will  occupy  the  present  earth,  changed  in  naught 
save  sin.  Whatever  be  our  theories  as  to  the  mode  of  its 
coming  and  existence,  all  who  believe  in  it  agree  as  to  its 
character.  It  is  simply  the  triumph  of  Christ  over  Satan  in 
the  hearts  and  lives,  the  laws  and  institutions,  of  man. 
What  that  war  is  between  Christ  and  anti-Christ,  all  hearts 
that  know  themselves,  too  painfully  understand.  It  is 
spiritual,  vital,  all  penetrating,  all  embracing.  It  is  a  strug- 
gle as  to  whether  man  shall  be  saved  from  sin,  or  kept  in 
sin.  It  is  an  attempt  to  make  the  earth  a  heaven  or  a  hell. 

This  war  begins  in  our  moral  nature,  and  in  the  sovereign 
head  of  that  nature,  the  free  will.  It  extends  through  every 
emotion,  sensibility,  intellect,  appetite,  habit,  custom,  law, 
or  institution,  whether  of  the  individual  or  society.  It  ex- 
tends its  vast,  imperceptible  influences  to  the  lowest  orders 
of  creation,  and  even  the  lifeless  elements  of  earth  and  air. 
At  the  first  revolt  of  the  reigning  will  in  man  from  its  super- 
reigning  Creator,  — 

"  Earth  felt  the  wound,  and  Nature  from  her  seat 
Sighing  through  all  her  works,  gave  signs  of  woe 
That  all  was  lost." 

The  ground  was  cursed  because  of  his  sin.  It  rolls  in 
waves,  it  cleaves  in  fire,  it  is  frozen  in  winter,  it  is  parched 
in  summer,  for  thy  sake,  0  man.  Not  the  ground  alone  is 
affected,  the  whole  creation  groaneth  and  travaileth  in  pain 
together  until  now.  The  whole  creation  is  to  be  restored 
only  by  the  restoration  of  man.  His  new  creation  can  alone 


BATTLE   OF  MISSIONARY  RIDGE.  375 

renew  the  face  of  the  earth.  As  is  the  fall,  so  must  the 
rising  be.  As  the  struggle,  so  the  triumph.  The  plunge 
was  through  Satan  unto  sin,  the  deliverance  must  be  through 
Christ  unto  holiness. 

The  perfected  deliverance  is  the  Millennium.  It  is  God 
again  at  the  helm  of  the  soul,  voluntarily  restored  there 
as  He  was  voluntarily  expelled  ;  God  moving  thence  through 
every  thought,  impulse,  volition,  bringing  all  into  subjection 
to  Him ;  God  thus  sanctifying  every  part  of  every  soul,  and 
making  them  communities  of  holiness,  centers  of  sacred  life, 
sweeping  away  by  their  personal  and  united  grace  the  curse 
and  the  crime  of  civil  and  social  life,  working  in  healing 
influences  in  the  animate  creation  and  in  the  earth  itself, 
until  "  the  statelier  Eden  comes  again  "  to  a  long-degraded 
and  ruined  world.  This  is  the  essence  of  the  Christian,  the 
Bible  Millennium.  This  was  promised  to  the  first  trans- 
gressor on  his  first  repentance.  It  gladdened  far  off  his  pen- 
itent eyes,  — 

"  Fair  as  <i  star  when  only  one 
Is  shining  in  the  sky." 

It  grew  nearer  and  clearer  to  the  faith  of  Abraham.  The 
solitary  star  had  become  a  cluster,  a  hemisphere  sprinkled 
with  beaming  hopes.  The  Lord  Jehovah  Jesus,  in  the 
solemn  midnight,  centuries  ago,  visited  him  in  his  little 
black,  goat-skin  tent,  under  the  rocky  range  of  Hebron,  and 
brought  him  forth  from  its  lowly,  flapping  door  into  the 
hollow  of  the  darkened  hills.  Far  up  the  clear  depths  with- 
in depths  he  beheld  — 

"  The  abyss  where  the  everlasting  stars  abide." 

"  Look  now  toward  heaven,"  said  his  divine  guide,  "  and 
tell  the  stars,  if  thou  be  able  to  number  them.  So  shall  thy 
seed  be.  And  in  thy  seed  shall  all  the  nations  of  the  earth 
be  blessed." 

And   yet  he   was  then    tho   only  representative  of  that 


376  THE    WAR   AND   THE   MILLENNIUM. 

multitude  and  blessedness  in  all  the  earth.  The  mighty 
idolatries  of  Egypt,  among  which  he  had  dwelt,  were  in  the 
hight  of  their  seemingly  eternal  solidity  of  strength  and 
glory.  Their  temples,  stout  as  the  pillars  of  earth,  were 
then  going  up.  Their  pyramids,  defying  the  shocks  .of  the 
reeling  globe  or  the  bolts  of  shattering  lightning,  were  then 
exquisitely  cutting  the  crystal  sky  with  their  perfect  lines. 
The  Assyrian  kingdom,  within  whose  boundaries  he  was 
born,  and  whose  Euphratean  metropolis  he  not  unlikely  had 
visited  in  his  youth,  was  then  exultant  in  the  unlimited  pomp 
and  sway  of  a  Satanic  faith.  The  deluge  of  spiritual  death 
rose  higher  than  the  highest  mountains  of  society,  filled  the 
whole  earth,  every  dell,  and  cleft,  and  crevice  of  every  heart 
of  every  people.  His  soul  alone  floated  on  the  desolate, 
rainy  seas,  a  spiritual  ark,  built  and  guided  of  God,  in  whose 
holy  recesses  the  faith  of  his  wife  and  son,  and  to  a  less 
degree  his  nephews,  were  also  carried. 

Jacob's  dying  eyes  beheld  the  like  vision  under  a  slight 
increase  of  the  on-marching  light.  A  few  score  of  his  own 
blo'od,  separated  from  the  rest  of  the  world  as  unclean,  are 
all  that  profess  the  true  and  saving  faith  ;  and  these  are 
worldly,  violent,  corrupt,  differing  from  their  heathen  neigh- 
bors in  but  little  more  than  their  creed,  and  often  inferior 
to  them  in  dignity  and  excellency  of  character.  Levi,  the 
father  of  the  priestly  line,  was  shamed  by  the  mildness  and 
manliness  of  Shechem,  the  pagan.  Judah,  from  whom  Christ 
came,  stamped  himself  and  his  tribe  with  indelible  infamy. 
Reuben  had  gone  still  further  in  sin,  and  done  deeds  that  even 
in  that  darkened  age  struck  the  public  conscience  with  ab- 
horrence, and  called  down  upon  him  the  dying  maledictions 
of  his  father. 

Yet  with  these  men  standing  about  his  couch,  the  aged 
patriarch  sees  the  coming  Shiloh,  the  Messiah  of  God,  and 
declares  that  to  Him  shall  the  gathering  of  the  peoples  be. 
The  blessing  that  Abraham  saw  conferred  in  Christ  upon  all 


BATTLE    OF   MISSIONARY   RIDGE.  377 

the  world,  Jacob  sees  is  responded  to  by  all  the  world.  The 
nations  shall  gather  about  the  Sent  of  God.  Though  not  a  na- 
tion then  acknowledged  Him ;  though  only  a  few  wild,  wan- 
dering men,  sons  of  a  thrifty,  itinerant  shepherd  accepted 
this  announcement  without  perception  of  its  meaning  or 
desire  for  its  consummation  ;  though  judging  from  his  com- 
mandments concerning  his  bones,  Joseph  was  the  only  one 
present  that  really  possessed  his  father's  faith  in  his  father's 
clearness  and  confidence,  still  the  word  is  spoken.  The 
world  shall  come  to  the  feet  of  Him  who  comes  from  God 
through  the  line  of  Judah. 

How  this  ray  is  multiplied  in  the  widening  light  of  Scripture 
history  !  How  proud  stand  David  and  Isaiah  on  the  misty 
mountain  tops  of  this  dawning  glory !  How  clear,  and  round, 
and  shining  it  cuts  the  horizon  at  Bethlehem  and  Nazareth, 
so  simple,  so  lustrous,  so  pure,  so  grand,  the  very  bright- 
ness of  the  glory  of  God  in  the  face  of  Jesus  Christ !  How 
this  light  increases  in  the  pages  that  follow  that  advent  and 
conclude  the  oracles  of  God  !  The  confinement  of  the  truth 
to  a  single  man,  a  single  family,  a  single  tribe,  a  single 
nation,  the  necessity  for  all  who  would  receive  it  to  become 
members  of  this  household,  is  suddenly  changed.  As  in 
the  night  we  can  overcome  the  darkness  only  by  seeking 
the  light,  while  in  the  day  the  light  seeks  us,  so  in  the  ages 
before  Shiloh  came  the  world  must  ally  itself  to  Judah,  if  it 
would  enjoy  heavenly  vision ;  but  after  His  advent  the 
divine  light  goetli  out  into  all  the  world.  The  deeds  of  the 
apostles  show  that  this  power  is  moving  out  for  the  sub- 
jugation and  ingathering  of  the  world,  East,  West,  North, 
and  South.  Down  to  Ethiopia,  over  to  Syria,  up  in  Asia 
Minor,  far  over  to  the  forest  depths  of  Illyricum,  out  to  the 
gates  of  Gibraltar,  to  Damascus,  most  ancient  of  cities, 
Antioch,  most  wealthy,  Athens,  most  cultivated,  Corinth, 
most  luxurious,  Home,  most  imperial,  everywhere  mightily 
grew  the  word  of  God  and  prevailed.  This  omnipotent 


378  THE   WAR   AND   THE   MILLENNIUM. 

assault  of  the  Spirit  of  God  on  the  spirit  of  evil  abounds  and 
superabounds  in  the  closing  chapters  of  the  Book.  Then  all 
the  trumpets  of  heaven,  with  one  acclaim,  are  ringing  out  the 
conquests  of  Christ  over  Satan  in  all  the  earth.  The  slow, 
dubious,  often  utterly  imperceptible  movements  of  the  pre- 
advent  age  are  changed  to  the  most  intense  and  increasing 
energy.  Vials  ever  pouring,  horsemen,  as  on  battle-fields, 
fiercely  riding,  war  rapidly  following  war,  the  Captain  of 
the  Hosts  of  the  Lord  pressing  home  His  victories,  giving 
His  baffled  enemy  no  chance  to  rest  and  repair  his  loss, 
driving  him  from  his  central  throne,  within  twelve  genera- 
tions after  His  crucifixion,  and  thus  expelling  Him  from  the 
sovereignty  of  what  is  called  in  the  New  Testament,  "  the 
inhabitable  world,"  and  in  the  Roman  writers,  the  "  orbis 
terrarum,"  the  globe  of  the  earth. 

Driven  to  his  savage  devotees,  Antichrist  rallies  these 
vilest  of  his  slaves  and  hurls  them  at  the  Christian  empire. 
The  empire,  backslidden,  is  seemingly  destroyed,  when,  lo, 
the  savages,  under  the  genial  penetration  of  Christian  grace, 
become  the  saviors  of  civilization.  They  are  as  fresh  soil 
to  worn-out  lands.  Christianity  converts  them,  not  they  it. 
Thus  Christ  advances,  till  to-day  only  three  organized  and 
prominent  powers  in  all  the  earth  deny  the  divinity  and 
redemption  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ, — the  Chinese,  the  Turk- 
ish, the  Japanese.  The  first  two  have  yielded  practically 
their  independence,  and  live  only  by  the  sufferance  or 
mutual  jealousies  of  their  Christian  neighbors,  while  at  the 
gates  of  the  last  the  guns  of  three  powers  are  now  thunder- 
ing, the  unconscious  servants  of  Christ,  battering  down,  not 
Japan,  but  its  idols  and  false  worship. 

The  rebellion  of  man  under  the  inspiration  of  Satan  grows 
weaker  year  by  year.  The  Revelator's  far-off  vision  from 
the  sharp,  bare  cliffs  of  Patmos,  is  our  careless,  every-day, 
mid-noon  brightness.  The  power  of  Antichrist  was  then 
supreme.  Across  the  smooth,  black  waves  the  hills  of 


BATTLE   OF   MISSIONARY   RIDGE.  379 

Ephesus  could  be  easily  seen.  On  their  farther  sides,  per- 
haps visible  through  the  opening  which  gave  her  a  harbor, 
Diana's  wonderful  temple  glitters  in  the  golden  light  of  that 
gorgeous  clime.  Across  the  opposite  and  wider  sea  — 

"  The  earth  then  wore  the  Parthenon 
The  brightest  gem  upon  her  zone." 

No  decay  then  blackened  its  shining  pillars,  no  rifts 
marred  its  matchless  symmetry.  Its  goddess,  sixty  feet 
tall,  of  ivory  and  gold,  towered  as  the  representative  of  that 
worldly  wisdom  which  is  to-day  the  most  pretentious  of  all 
the  enemies  of  Christ.  Just  below,  Corinth  was  ablaze  with 
a  magnificence  that  was  all  devoted  to  the  most  open  and 
shameful  lust.  Below  Ephesus  the  horrid  foulnesses  of 
Phenician  abominations  flourished  in  opulent  Aritioch.  In 
sight  lay  the  birth-place  of  Homer,  who  had  clothed  the 
false  offspring  of  false  gods  in  the  regalest  robes  of  melody 
and  imagination  ;  and  close  beside  him  was  the  home  of 
Pythagoras,  who  had  sought  to  give  them  the  dignity  and 
authority  of  reason.  Everywhere  about  him  was  Rome,  in 
closest  amity  with  the  enemy  of  God  and  man.  Zealously 
she  followed  his  commands  and  shook  her  sceptre,  full  of  fear 
and  death,  over  the  trembling,  scattered  sheep  of  Christ. 
Yet  he  saw  through  and  beyond,  above  and  around  all  this 
dominion  of  darkness  the  bright,  divine  future,  and  was 
glad. 

Such  is  the  Millennium  in  prophecy  and  history,  in 
progress  and  perfection. 

II.  What  connection  has  our  war  with  this  consummation  ? 
The  progress  of  the  promised  grace  has  subdued  its  first 
enemy,  idolatry.  This  destroyed  man's  allegiance  to  God. 
It  must  subdue  the  second  enemy,  which  is  man's  hostility 
to  man.  This  hostility  assumes  civil  and  social  forms.  It 
is  monarchic,  Slavic,  disuniting.  Against  these,  march 
democracy,  unity,  fraternity,  every  man  the  equal  and  the 


380  THE  WAE   AND   THE   MILLENNIUM. 

brother  of  every  man.  To  gain  this  victory  we  are  now 
contending. 

1 .  The  separation  of  man  by  artificial  social  barriers  is  one 
of  the  earliest  and  deepest  expressions  of  our  rebellious  na- 
ture. Ambition,  if  the  last  infirmity  of  noble  minds,  is  the  first 
of  ignoble.  Success  gratifies  it,  power  solidifies  it.  When 
solidified,  immediately  the  priest  consecrates  it,  and  to  deny 
its  divinity  is  sacrilege.  That  is  the  way  the  monarchic  and 
aristocratic  systems  have  always  grown.  England's  social 
structure,  the  proudest,  and  richest,  and  wickedest  of  any 
that  controls  civilized  society,  has  grown  exclusively  from 
this  seed.  A  robber  chief,  with  a  few  hundred  retainers, 
lands  on  her  coast,  throws  his  sword  into  the  balance  of  a 
civil  war,  reduces  both  foes  and  allies  to  slavery,  parcels 
out  the  lands,  confers  titles,  appoints  bishops  and  cardinals 
to  sanctify  his  crime,  and  thus  establishes  the  present  gov- 
ernment of  England.  The  crimes,  in  which  Kinglake  so 
forcibly  shows  that  the  present  Napoleon  laid  his  power, 
were  few  and  trifling  beside  these  out  of  which  Victoria's 
throne  has  been  built.  But  few  and  small  as  they  were,  they 
were  of  like  character,  and  show  that  the  eight  centuries  that 
separate  their  commission  have  not  modified  their  nature. 

All  governments  based  on  the  few,  by  the  few,  and  for 
the  few,  are  hostile  to  the  government  of  Christ,  and  must 
be  abolished  before  His  glory  fully  comes.  They  were  con- 
ceived in  sin  and  shapen  in  iniquity.  They  breed  pride, 
licentiousness,  violence  in  the  ruler,  —  poverty,  cowardice, 
sycophancy,  ignorance,  lawlessness  in  the  ruled.  The 
Papal  Church,  and  its  eldest  daughter,  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land, are  oligarchies.  They  uphold  civil  by  religious 
tyranny.  Not  so  the  first  and  future  Church.  That  is 
Democracy.  Her  people  are  equal  each  to  each,  and  their 
pastor's  superiority  is  not  one  of  authority  but  of  service. 
The  governments  of  man  and  of  the  Church  must  correspond. 
Both  must  be  a  brotherhood  of  equals. 


BATTLE  OF  MISSIONARY  RIDGE.  381 

2.  Then  comes  the  unification  of  Man.  Unless  he  is  one, 
Church  nor  State  can  ever  be  one.  Christ  cannot  be  the 
Head  of  our  household.  Whatever  opposes  this  consumma- 
tion, —  blood,  language,  color,  caste,  —  must  give  way,  that 
Christ  may  be  all  and  in  all. 

These  vital  principles  are  involved  in  our  struggle.  The 
first  we  saw  at  the  first.  So  the  whole  world,  kings 
and  peoples,  instinctively  saw  that  the  struggle  was  over 
that  idea,  over  both  ideas.  The  nation  hailed  the  first  with 
unbounded  fervor  —  Union  for  the  sake  of  Union.  But 
thoughtful  men  hailed  the  grander  idea  that  rose  behind 
and  above  it,  — 

"  Another  sun  risen  on  mid  noon," — 

the  Equality  and  Fraternity  of  Man.  Union,  not  for  our- 
selves alone,  but  for  all  men,  was  our  strongest,  our  most 
general  feeling.  It  carried  us  safely  over  the  disastrous 
days  of  our  first  defeats,  through  that  first  winter  of  fearful 
idleness,  when  the  riotous  rebels  built  their  camp-fires  and 
boiled  the  bones  of  our  slain  heroes  in  sight  of  our  capital. 
•It  carried  us  through  the  still  more  terrible  calamities  of  the 
Peninsula  defeats,  and  the  yet  severer  defeat  of  our  confi- 
dence in  the  commander  of  that  campaign. 

But  the  people  clung  with  increasing  devotion  to  their 
idea,  and  its  embodiment  in  American  nationality.  Three 
hundred  thousand  men  hastened  to  cast  themselves  into  the 
gulf,  that  Union  and  democracy  might  be  preserved. 

The  second,  and  even  darker  winter,  came  upon  us ;  a 
winter  of  woful  discontent.  Treason  triumphed  in  many 
of  the  States  of  the  North.  The  Proclamation  of  Emanci- 
pation,— a  glad  and  glorious  vision  to  holy  hearts, — was  sur- 
rounded by  clouds  and  darkness,  even  like  Him  from  whose 
chambers  it  had  truly  proceeded.  The  Mississippi  was  still 
fettered  by  stronger  bands  in  its  Southern  windings  than 
the  icy  ones  nature  had  imposed  on  its  upper  currents. 


382  THE   WAR  AND   THE   MILLENNIUM. 

McClellan  removed,  Burnside  defeated,  Hooker  defeated, 
Fremont  cashiered,  how  thick  the  ^darkness,  how  faint  the 
national  heart  ! 

Still  her.  purpose  failed  not.  Why  ?  It  was  the  salva- 
tion of  popular  government.  The  Union  must  be  preserved, 
not  alone  because  it  was  essential  to  our  own  welfare,  but 
because  through  its  preservation  would  the  divine  doctrine 
of  popular  government  live  among  men.  If  America  is  lost, 
the  world  is  lost. 

Under  this  chastisement  the  people  accept  that  other 
truth — the  Identity  of  Man.  God  compels  them  to  take 
this  truth,  just  as  very  sick  persons  take  very  disagreeable 
draughts,  not  that  they  like  the  medicine,  but  that  they  may 
get  well.  Only  this  medicine  of  God  is  truly  His  best  of 
food  ;  the  choicest  of  His  gifts  to  men  as  men.  The  Union 
is  the  American  passion  —  a  passion  which  no  European 
appreciates.  England  sneers  at  it,  and,  if  friendly,  looks 
blank  and  ignorant  at  such  enthusiasm.  "  Why  this  fury 
for  the  Union  ?  "  "  We  have  had  one  for  two  hundred  and 
fifty  years,  and  nobody  on  either  side  feels  for  it  an  impulse 
of  enthusiasm  or  patriotic  affection."  "Why  this  talk  about 
'our  country'?"  Country,  to  an  Englishman,  is  simply  the 
region  not  occupied  by  large  cities.  "The  Times  "  acknowl- 
edges that  it  does  not  understand  Mr.  Beecher  when  he  talks 
so  much  about  "our  country."  An  incident  current  in  their 
drawing-rooms  illustrates  this  remark.  An  American  lady, 
who  sought  to  conceal  her  American  origin,  as  if  ashamed 
of  it,  was  charged  in  company  with  being  an  American. 
She  reddened  with  shame  and  surprise.  "  Why  do  you 
make  such  an  accusation?"  she  asked.  "  Because  you  said 
'  our  country.'  No  Englishman  ever  uses  that  expres- 
sion." 

But  our  passion  for  our  country  is  also  and  chiefly  a 
passion  for  liberty.  We  fight  for  empire,  because  empire 
means  democracy.  We  shall  wage  this  war  fifty  years,  if 


BATTLE    OF   MISSIONARY   BIDGE.  383 

need  be,  because  ever3Tbody,  with  more  or  less  clearness, 
sees  that  its  success  is  essential  to  the  preservation  of  those 
ideas.  It  was  not  so  ^at  the  first.  Abolitionists,  though 
sound  on  the  rights  of  man,  were,  as  a  whole,  unsound  on 
the  necessity  of  the  Union  to  attain  and  maintain  their  rights. 
Different  classes  of  the  people  were  the  depositary  of  differ- 
ent ideas.  The  one  cried  "  Union  at  any  cost.  Down  with 
the  abolitionists  who  are  disturbing  it.  Union  is  liberty. 
Union  is  democracy.  Let  it  alone,  even  if  it  becomes  the 
patron  of  slavery.  Some  way  and  some  time  it  will  emanci- 
pate the  State  from  that  iniquity."  The  other  party,  with 
equal  and  superior  fervor,  cried,  "  The  Rights  of  every  man 
at  any  cost.  Down  with  the  Union,  if  it  stands  in  the  way 
of  liberty." 

As  in  the  material  world,  the  orbit  pursued  is  the  result- 
ant of  the  forces  employed  upon  the  orb  itself,  so  here.  The 
centrifugal  lovers  of  Liberty,  and  the  centripetal  lovers  of 
Union,  whose  representatives  were  Phillips  and  Everett, 
were  each  at  heart  lovers  of  the  democratic  and  federative 
ideas.  Both  sought  their  preservation.  Both  contended 
together,  because  each  felt  his  own  principle  was  in  danger 
of  destruction  through  the  purpose  of  his  antagonist's  idea. 
The  shock  of  arms  united  them.  The  one  saw  that  Union 
now  meant  universal  liberty.  The  other  that  abolitionism 
meant  Union,  and  only  under  its  banner  could  the  nation  be 
preserved.  Equal  rights  were  seen  to  mean  every  man's 
rights.  Democracy  was  identical  with  abolitionism.  Hence 
no  men  were  more  ardent  to  strike  down  the  slave  power 
than  the  life-long  democrats,  —  democrats  who  were  honest 
believers  in  the  corner-stone  of  their  creed  —  the  equality  of 
man.  Dickinson  of  New  York  was  such  a  democrat ;  Butler 
of  Massachusetts,  another.  They  said  instantly,  "  free  the 
slave  ;  make  him  a  soldier ;  cut  out  the  cancer  over  the 
heart  of  the  republic." 

3.  But  a  greater  truth  than  all  the  rest  was  born  of  the 


384  THE   WAR  AND   THE   MILLENNIUM. 

exigencies  of  this  hour.  We  found  we  as  yet  had  known 
nothing,  as  it  were,  of  the  scope  and  fullness  of  that  word 
Democracy.  It  was  with  us,  at  the  worst,  equality  of  white 
people,  and  the  slavery  of  all  other  complexions ;  at  the 
best,  equality  of  the  whites,  and  the  liberty,  but  not  fraternity, 
of  the  blacks.  Not  the  oneness  of  man  as  man,  —  never, 
never.  We  fell  into  spasms  at  the  thought  of  that  divine 
truth,  as  a  mushroom  lord  of  England  might  at  his  equality 
with  his  servant. 

But  the  wisdom  of  God  is  wiser  than  men.  You  did  not 
create  the  doctrine  of  human  fraternity.  You  may  have 
fancied  that  you  did ;  that  it  was  your  patent,  and  could 
be  limited  and  controlled  at  your  pleasure.  So  did  the 
Athenian  democrats.  Where  are  they  ?  So  have  the 
Southern  slavemongers.  Where  are  they?  God,  my  friends, 
not  you,  made  man,  of  one  father,  that  all  might  be  brethren, 
that  each  should  in  honor  prefer  one  another,  esteeming 
others  better  than  themselves.  He  is  pushing  us  forward 
to  His,  not  our,  Millennium.  He  is  using  and  blessing  us 
if  we  choose  to  work  with  Him.  If  not,  He  is  none  the 
less  using  us,  while  also  chastising,  for  the  advancement 
of  mankind  to  the  same  goal.  He  maketh  our  wrath  or 
righteousness  alike  to  praise  and  prosper  Him.  Whether 
gradually,  and  by  the  operation  of  laws  that  have  been 
molding  and  transforming  man  for  ages,  or  suddenly,  and 
by  the  breaking  up  of  the  present  order  and  institution  of 
a  new  earth  and  new  man,  as  some  devout  students  of  the 
Bible  believe,  whichever  be  the  way,  the  end  is  sure  and 
the  same.  The  Millennium  is  a  world  of  men,  equal, 
brotherly,  united,  and  holy.  Every  approach  to  that  state 
now  renders  its  violent  introduction  less  necessary.  If  it 
can  be  effected  by  natural  causes  there  will  be  no  need  of 
the  supernatural.  It  is  being  effected.  The  divine  doctrine 
of  democracy  has  become  choked  with  weeds  and  stones. 
We  said  "  It  is  true  and  grand,  but  it  is  only  for  white  folks. 


BATTLE   OF   MISSIONARY   RIDGE.  385 

Do  you  dare  to  say  that  that  negro  aiid  I  are  of  one  blood, 
and  should  be  one  in  social  and  civil  life  ?  that  it  is  as  much 
his  duty  to  ignore  my  complexion  as  it  is  mine  to  ignore  his  ? 
Horrible ! "  And  so  we  stone  the  prophets  who  simply  preach 
to  us  our  own  doctrine  of  democracy,  rationally  and  divinely 
developed. 

But  God  is  taking  vengeance  on  us  for  destroying  His 
servants,  and  is  compelling  us  to  rise  to  the  hights  of  our 
own  principles  at  the  threat  of  losing  all  its  lower  develop- 
ments, which  we  see  to  be  our  essential  life.  We  listen, 
refuse,  yield,  and  most  reluctantly  obey. 

Now  comes  another  word  of  God.  Arm  him  as  a  soldier  ? 
We  refuse  ;  we  scream  in  fear  and  hatred  at  that  word. 
When  Charles  Sumner  said,  at  the  Massachusetts  Republican 
Convention,*  that  such  was  the  course  of  Marius  to  save 
Rome,  and  such  must  be  ours  to  save  the  country,  the 
journals  of  our  capital  denied  the  correctness  of  his  quota- 
tions, and  scouted  with  horror-  his  proposals.  To  such  a 
pitch  of  fear  did  they  reach,  that  on  carrying  a  defense  of 
his  scholarship  —  as  if  it  could  need  defense  —  to  the  most 
learned  of  our  journals,  which  had  been  severest  in  denun- 
ciation of  his  scholarship,  I  was  told,  after  the  article  had 
spent  a  night  in  their  editorial  rooms,  that  if  they  should 
dare  to  •  publish  that  simple  statement  of  the  language  of 
Plutarch,  their  building  would  be  torn  down  before  night. 
Another  journal,  "  The  Traveller,"  to  its  honor  be  it  said, 
admitted  the  article,  and  what  was  better,  stood  by  the  prin- 
ciple, without  loss  of  building  or  character. 

Such  opposition  only  new  punishment  could  cure.  So 
God  sent  our  enemies  again  upon  us.  They  ate  up  our 
boys  as  the  ox  eateth  up  grass.  He  develops  demand  for 
work  at  home  to  subdue  the  recruiting  fever.  He  makes 
the  draft  unpopular  and  difficult.  He  wastes  our  armies, 
and  shows  that  they  cannot  be  replenished  from  their  pre- 

2/r      *  September,  1861. 


386  THE   WAR   AND   THE   MILLENNIUM. 

vious  sources.  At  length,  crushed  with  calamity  and  nigh 
the  gates  of  the  grave,  we  whiningly  and  meanly,  yet  hon- 
estly say,  "  Come,  you  nigger,  and  fight  for  us."  He  comes. 
Disregarding  our  hearts,  mindful  only  of  our  danger,  he 
comes  and  fights  like  well  tried  warriors  ;  fights  so  grandly 
that  an  officer  at  Port  Hudson  urged  the  appointment  of 
white  officers  over  them,  because  if  led  by  their  own  men 
they  would  have  certainly  stormed  those  hights,  and  every 
man  been  slain.  Whoever  heard  before  that  it  was  the  busi- 
ness of  an  officer  in  battle  to  restrain  the  daring  of  his  men. 

We  are  being  led  gradually  to  higher  hights.  Providence 
is  using  this  degradation  for  the  furtherance  of  His  ends. 
What  means  the  cry  that  has  just  made  every  heart  bleed 
afresh.  Our  sons  are  starving  in  Richmond  prisons  !  Why 
not  exchange  them  ?  We  cannot.  Why  not  ?  Because 
the  rebels  refuse  to  recognize  the  white  officers  of  colored 
regiments  as  prisoners  of  war,  and  are  putting  our  colored 
soldiers,  whom  they  have  taken  captive,  into  slave-pens  and 
worse  than  slave  miseries.  If  we  call  these  men  to  fight 
for  us,  we  must,  at  least,  protect  them  if  captured,  equally 
with  their  fellow-soldiers.  There,  at  least,  white  and  black 
are  alike.  The  people  are  sad,  but,  thank  God,  are  firm. 
They  might  not  have  been,  had  the  rebels  used  those  white 
officers  as  they  do  our  other  officers.  They  might  have 
said,  "  Let  the  blacks  be  enslaved,  but  release  my  white  sons 
by  exchange  for  yours."  God  has  made  this  trick  of  the 
devil  a  clasp  of  his  own  to  bind  us  to  our  despised  brethren. 

We  must  yet  give  these  officers  position.  We  must  let 
them  serve  in  what  regiments  they  choose.  We  must  let 
them  rise  in  that  regiment,  if  they  are  worthy,  to  the  chief 
command.  We  must  make  them  generals,  not  of  black 
men,  but  of  armies.  This  war,  if  greatly  prolonged,  will 
not  close  till  this  progress  is  wrought.  It  is  not  as  great 
as  has  been  achieved.  It  must  be  done  to  make  our  ways 
straight  for  the  coming  of  the  Lord.  God  will  not  rest 


BATTLE    OF   MISSIONARY   RIDGE.  387 

until,  either  through  this  war,  or  by  subsequent  conflicts, 
which  He  shall  create  and  control,  He  has  abolished  this 
iniquity  from  every  institution  and  every  heart. 

The  last  word  of  commendation  which  Mr.  Beecher  re- 
ceived in  England  was  from  the  students  of  the  non-con- 
forming colleges,  the  heirs  of  the  blood,  principles,  and 
sovereignty  of  Cromwell  and  his  associates.  In  that  address 
they  urge  him  to  labor  for  the  abolition  of  all  distinctions 
in  society  based  on  color.  It  will  be  done,  and  we  shall 
yet  see  in  Baltimore,  as  in  Boston,  people  of  African  descent 
moving  freely  in  the  best  society.  Africa  is  as  good  a 
country  as  Asia,  whence  we  are  supposed  to  have  come, 
and  its  children  will  be  held  in  as  high  an  honor. 

Thus  shall  the  millennial  day  break  upon  the  world.  It 
may  be  in  a  day.  Events  are  hastening  it  forward.  Every 
step  in  Europe  is  to  emancipation,  equalization,  unification. 
There  is  no  possibility  of  peace  there  on  any  other  basis. 
Nor  is  there  here. 

Christendom  thus  unified,  heathendom  and  Islamdom 
will  soon  be  regenerated.  Social  vices  will  abate  their 
violence.  Liberty  and  unity  will  prevent  wars  and  arma- 
ments, royal  houses,  and  luxurious  absorption  by  a  few  fam- 
ilies of  the  people's  wealth.  Legitimate  industry  will  pay 
the  old  debts  of  kings  and  crimes,  and  easily  supply  the 
slight  demands  of  a  popular  and  peaceful  government.  In- 
temperance, Sabbath-breaking,  infidelity,  all  the  fruits  of 
crowned  and  Catholic  Europe,  will  be  replaced  with  the 
graces  of  Christianity.  The  Lord  Jesus  will  be  the  real  and 
recognized,  if  not  visible,  sovereign  of  the  world.  "  Unto 
Him  shall  all  flesh  come,  and  every  knee  bow."  By  Him 
shall  rulers  reign,  and  judges  decree  justice.  In  Him  shall 
all  the  world,  consciously,  happily,  completely,  live,  and 
move,  and  have  its  being. 

"  Yea,  truth  and  justice  then, 
Will  down  return  to  men, 


388  THE   WAR   AND   THE   MILLENNIUM. 

Orbed  in  a  rainbow ;  and,  like  glories  wearing, 

Mercy  will  sit  between, 

Throned  in  celestial  sheen, 
.   With  radiant  feet  the  tissued  clouds  down  steering,. 

And  heaven,  as  at  some  festival, 
Will  open  wide  the  gates  of  her  high  palace  hall." 

Say  not  this  is  all  a  golden  dream.  It  is  scriptural,  ra- 
tional, inevitable.  It  is  hardly  now  a  prophetic  vision,  so 
much  of  it  has  been  accomplished.  The  blindest-eyed  can 
see,  through  the  vista  before  him,  the  glad  consummation. 
Compared  with  the  dreary  ages  that  are  past,  how  brief,  how 
pleasant  the  remnant  hours  !  Gigantic  sins  can  be  brought 
low  as  in  a  moment.  Three  years  ago,  and  the  most  hopeful 
souls  in  America  could  see  no  immediate  end  to  its  most 
awful  sin.  Here  and  there  was  one  who  said  the  election 
of  Mr.  Lincoln  begins  the  end.  But  this  gave  it  nearly  or 
over  a  score  of  years  in  which  to  die.  The  multitude  saw 
not  even  those  misty  mountain  tops.  They  looked  over 
the  immense  territories  ruled  by  the  masters  of  these  sins, 
and  no  glare  of  sunshine  greeted  their  eyes.  Wickedness 
stalked  crowned,  haughty,  through  all  that  land. 

"  The  free  were  only  they 
Whom  power  made  free  to  execute  all  ills 
Their  hearts  imagine ;  they  alone  were  great 
Whose  passions  nursed  them  from  their  cradle  up 
To  luxury  and  lewdness  —  whom  to  see 
Was  to  despise  —  whose  aspect  put  to  scorn 
Their  station's  eminence.     The  wise,  they  only 
Obscurely  waiting  till  the  bolts  of  heaven 
Should  break  upon  the  land,  and  give  them  light 
Whereby  to  walk !     The  innocent,  alas  ! 
Poor  Innocency  lay  where  four  roads  meet, 
A  stone  upon  her  head,  a  stake  driven  through  her. 
Who  that  was  innocent  did  care  to  live, 
The  hand  of  power  did  press  the  very  life 
Of  Innocency  out." 

That  horrid  shape,  most  said,  can  never  die.  For  centu- 
ries, certainly,  will  it  flourish.  It  arose  in  arms.  How  the 


BATTLE  OF  MISSIONARY  RIDGE.  389 

whole  land  trembled  at  the  neighing  of  its  strong  ones  ! 
How  we  quailed  and  whitened  at  its  imperial  front !  Never 
before  was  a  nation  so  despised  by  its  rebels.  No  epithets 
could  body  forth  their  scorn.  Egypt  did  not  so  disdain 
her  Hebrew  slaves,  nor  the  Philistines,  with  Goliath  at  their 
head,  the  unarmed  refugees  of  the  cliffs  of  Judean  wilder- 
nesses. They  had  bounds  to  their  contempt.  Not  so  our 
Southern  masters.  "Mudsills,"  "greasy  mechanics,"  whom 
"we  can  drive  into  the  ocean  with  a  lady's  riding-whip," — 
these  were  the  A  B  C  of  their  scorn.  They  looked  abroad, 
and  every  aristocrat  was  nodding  and  winking  approval, 
chief  of  whom  in  this  crime  against  God  and  humanity  was 
the  aristocracy  of  Great  Britain. 

Our  hopes  were  in  our  principles,  our  people,  and  our 
God.  They  have  not  failed  us.  And  the  hideous  iniquity 
which  we  dared  not  touch,  which  we  went  round  and  round 
to  get  at  those  who,  sheltered  behind  its  Gorgon-headed 
shield,  laughed  us  to  scorn  ;  that  Gorgon-hissing  shield  we 
at  last  struck  at  and  stnick  through,  and  the  monster  lies 
prone  for  many  a  league,  prone  over  half  the  land,  prone 
forever. 

Coifi,  a  priest  of  British  paganism,  at  the  time  of  that 
island's  conversion,  and  before  its  present  backsliding,  at 
the  risk  of  death  from  the  insulted  gods,  rode  full  tilt 
against  their  temples,  before  a  ghastly  crowd,  who  believed 
instant  death  would  be  visited  upon  a  priest  who  should  dare, 
armed,  to  approach  these  shrines,  and  were  expecting  that 
such  would  be  his  sudden  fate.  But,  as  the  poet  tells  us, — 

"  He  crashed 

Through  the  inclosures,  ever  sacred  held, 
And  gained  the  central  space  unharmed,  and  rode 
Thrice  round  and  round,  and  in  his  stirrup  stood, 
And  with  a  higli  defiance  on  his  lip, 
Smote  with  a  clang  an  Idol,  monster  faced; 
E'en  as  lie  smote,  the  foul  thing,  reeling,  fell, 
And  then  from  every  heart  the  icy  hand 
Of  fear  was  lifted. 


390  THE   WAK   AND   THE   MILLENNIUM. 

Within  the  crowd  a  sacred  fury  wrought ; 

The  deities  were  tumbled  on  the  grass, 

The  pales  and  the  inclosures  were  torn  down, 

And  one  a  torch  applied,  and  towers 

Of  flame  rushed  up,  then  licked  the  air  and  died, 

While  white-rohed  priests,  together  standing,  sung : 

'  Down  falls  the  wicked  idol  on  his  face  — 

So  let  all  wicked  gods  and  idols  fall.'  " 

Thus  have  the  fears  of  our  monster  idol  been  dispelled, 
and  the  demon  that  has  burned  to  death  screaming  myriads 
in  his  arms  of  fire,  has  been  smitten  of  God  and  tumbled  into 
the  lake  of  eternal  burning,  while  we  have  stood  amazed 
and  glad  beyond  all  power  of  praise.  Its  priestly  devotees 
and  lordly  defenders  are  howling  in  sorrow  and  shame,  de- 
feat and  destruction. 

Let  us  not  despair  of  further  victories  of  the  Lamb.  This 
demon  slain,  there  is  no  such  other  hydra  cursing  the  earth. 
European  tyrannies  will  fast  follow  it  to  its  dishonored  grave. 
Asiatic  abominations  and  African  savagery  will  feel  the 
warm  rays  of  the  Sun  of  Righteousness,  long  held  in  disas- 
trous eclipse  by  this  horrific  sin.  They  will  wilt  down  at 
His  presence,  as  when  the  melting  fire  burneth,  the  fire 
causeth  the  waters  to  boil. 

Our  own  social  sins,  intemperance,  Sabbath-breaking, 
infidelity,  immorality,  will  be  more  easily  restrained  and 
extirpated  after  this  Satan  among  the  lesser  fiends  is  cast 
into  the  bottomless  pit  and  chained  there  forever.  Our 
prejudices,  born  and  fostered  of  him,  will  likewise  disappear, 
and  brotherly  love  and  unity  possess  all  hearts. 

The  glad  tidings  of  yesterday  assure  the  speedy  over- 
throw of  Pharaoh  and  his  hosts.  This  great  and  growing 
soldier,  with  a  rare  fitness,  joins  his  victories  to  our  national 
holidays.  They  are  thus  twice  blessed,  in  what  they  give 
to  these  rejoiceful  days,  in  what  of  higher  quality  they  take 
from  their  ancient  worthiness,  and  add  to  their  own  high 
meed  of  fame.  Vicksburg  crowns  the  nation's  birthday  with 


BATTLE   OF   MISSIONARY   RIDGE.  391 

an  undying  glory,  and  Chattanooga,  relieved  of  its  long- 
exultant  enemies,  fills  the  most  ancient  of  our  festal  days 
with  the  tides  of  exultant  life.  See  that  band  creeping 
round  the  shaggy  breast  of  yon  sharp  peak ;  amid  the  blast- 
ed pines,  the  prostrate  firs,  the  loose  stones,  their  perilous 
path  they  keep,  up  and  up,  till  a  cloud  receives  them  out 
of  our  sight.  Not  a  cloud  of  heaven,  but  of  earth,  a  cloud 
soon  to  flash  with  unwonted  brightness,  to  rumble  with 
thunder-claps  of  death.  The  battle  opens,  rages,  grows 
closer,  hotter,  deadlier.  Pressing  ever  on  and  up  swing 
the  gallant  troops  around  the  last  smooth  precipitous  wall, 
that  sits  a  crown  of  smooth,  high  rock  upon  the  mountain's 
brow.  The  rebels  break  and  flee ;  along  the  wild  edge,  head- 
long plunges  the  host.  The  fiery  Hooker  is  fleeter  of  foot. 
Upon  the  plains  beneath  he  breaks,  like  torrents  into  which 
the  mountain  cloud  seems  to  have  burst,  torrents  sweeping 
all  things  in  their  wild  and  fatal  flight. 

Across  the  plains,  on  a  low  ridge,  hangs  a  heavier  cloud 
of  war.  It  stretches  for  miles  along  its  summit.  In  the 
valley  below,  with  Chattanooga  at  its  back,  but  a  mile  or 
two  distant,  on  a  little  knob,  stands  a  little  man  reconnoiter- 
ing  the  scene.  The  plains  are  filled  with  mustering  squad- 
rons. Advances  are  made  along  the  line  up  this  bristling 
hill.  Here  Sherman  holds  his  enemy  by  the  throat,  each 
bleeding,  each  fii-m.  Then  Thomas  pushes  forward  his 
columns,  and  below  Hooker  sweeps  up  the  less  precipitous 
but  more  perilous  sides,  with  his  untamed  daring.  Day 
and  day  writhes  the  mighty  anaconda  of  the  plains,  and  the 
hills  are  wreathed  in  agony  of  strife.  That  point  is  reached 
at  last  which  every  great  general  knows,  and  only  great 
generals,  when,  each  side  exhausted,  that  which  summons 
all  its  strength  crushes  its  foe.  The  word  is  given.  The 
army  summon  up  the  spirits  ;  the  hill  is  stormed,  is  swept, 
is  ours.  The  rebels,  who  but  now  had  thought  themselves 
invulnerable,  leap  from  their  rifle-pits  and  intrenchments, 
and  fly  in  panic  irrepressible. 


392  THE   WAR  AND   THE  MILLENNIUM. 

This  is  the  thanksgiving  feast  that  the  calm  general  sends 
to  a  nation  drunken  with  delight.  This  crushes  the  dragon 
in  all  the  region  above  the  Gulf  States,  except  that  spot 
where  he  raises  his  head  sparkling  defiance  from  his  green 
and  deadly  eyes.  The.  West  is  free  from  slave  or  rebel,  and 
shall  be  free  forever. 

This  victory  assures  the  end.  Slavery  is  doomed  by  the 
fiat  of  the  nation  and  the  arm  of  Grant.  They  have  fought 
with  the  Lamb,  and  the  Lamb  has  overcome  them.  No 
State,  we  fondly  hope  and  believe,  can  ever  resume  its 
place  in  the  Union  with  this  crime  on  its  hands.  Other 
blessings  shall  speedily  follow  —  all  blessings.  The  glory 
of  the  Lord  shall  cover  the  earth  as  the  waters  cover  the 
sea.  Already  its  beams  cover  thick  the  morning  sky. 

"Come  forth,  0  Light,  from  out  the  breaking  East, 
And  with  thy  splendor  pierce  the  heathen  dark, 
And  morning  make  a  continent  and  isle, 
That  Thou  mayst  reap  the  harvest  of  Thy  tears, 
O  Holy  One,  who  hung  upon  the  tree." 


WHY    GRANT    WILL    SUCCEED: 


"  AND  THE  LORD  SAID  UNTO  JOSHUA,  FEAR  NOT,  NEITHER  BE  THOU 
DISMAYED  ;  TAKE  ALL  THE  PEOPLE  OF  WAR  WITH  THEE,  AND  ARISE, 
GO  UP  TO  Al  :  SEE,  I  HAVE  GIVEN  INTO  THY  HAND  THE  KING  OF  Al, 

AND  HIS  PEOPLE,  AND  HIS  CITY,  AND  HIS  LAND." Joshua  viii.  1. 


HE  land  trembles  with  the  conflict  that  has  been 
raging  for  more  than  a  week  in  the  seat  of  the 
rebellion.  The  smoke  of  the  great  agony  curls 
up  in  the  central  heavens,  and  almost  casts  its 
lurid  darkness  over  our  visible  skies.  Under  its  sulphurous 
canopy  our  sons  and  brothers  have  been  wrestling  in  a  death 
struggle  with  those  who  should  be  our  sons  and  brothers, 
for  principles  and  privileges  that  are  dearer  than  life.  We 
gather  in  this  quiet  house  of  prayer,  far  from  the  scene 
of  the  contest ;  yet  we  hear  but  little  save  the  rapid  pelting 
of  the  musketry  or  the  fearful  boom  of  the  artillery.  Our 
ears  are  filled  with  the  hurrahs  of  our  boys  as  they  fly  up 
the  steep  sides  of  rebel  earthworks,  or  the  Indian  yells  of 
our  foes,  as  they  leap  in  mighty  masses  upon  our  serried 
columns.  The  piled  dead  lie  before  our  vision,  ghastly, 

*  A  sermon  preached  in  Boston,  Sunday,  May  15,  1864,  on  the  occa- 
sion of  the  advance  of  General  Grant  on  Kichmond.     See  Note  XIV. 

(393) 


394  WHY   GRANT   WILL   SUCCEED. 

torn,  trampled,  their  eyes  glazed,  or  "  staring  in  muddy  im- 
purity." The  wounded,  sinking,  fainting,  groaning,  bleed- 
ing, fill  our  souls  with  inexpressible  anguish.  We  see  not 
each  other's  faces,  we  hear  not  each  other's  voices.-  These 
sights  and  sounds  fill  sense  and  soul  to  a  staggering  fullness. 

"The  fires  of  death, 

The  bale  fires,  flash  on  high ;  from  rock  to  rock, 
Each  volley  tells  that  thousands  cease  to  breathe ; 
Death  rides  upon  the  sulphury  siroc ; 
lied  Battle  stamps  his  foot,  and  nations  feel  the  shock." 

Amid  such  powerful  presences  it  is  difficult  for  congre- 
gations to  gather  in  churches  to-day.  Telegrams,  not  texts, 
are  our  spiritual  food.  The  battle,  not  the  Bible,  draws  our 
attention.  The  lives  of  myriads,  nay,  the  life  of  the  nation, 
hangs  on  the  dreadful  die. 

We  do  not  condemn  this  feeling.  Were  one  of  your 
family  to-day  struggling  with  disease,  and  life  or  death 
hung  trembling  in  the  balance,  you  would  not  be  a  listener 
here.  You  would  be  busy  in  the  chamber,  nursing  and 
praying.  The  quiet  worship  of  God's  house  is  sometimes 
more  profane  than  the  active  worship  of  out-door  philan- 
thropy. Should  you,  on  coming  hither,  see  a  horse  cast  in 
the  street,  and  say,  "It  is  Sunday ;  I  cannot  miss  my  seat 
and  sermon  to  relieve  this  poor  beast,"  you  would  find  no 
spiritual  nourishment  in  the  service.  God  would  scorn 
your  advances.  How  much  more,  then,  when  your  country 
is  struggling  for  existence,  when  the  principles  of  civil  and 
Christian  society  are  cast  into  the  wavering  scales  of  war, 
when  the  welfare  of  the  living  generation  and  unborn  gen- 
erations is  subjected  to  the  risks  of  battle  ;  then,  if  ever,  in 
every  church  and  congregation,  should  prayers,  meditations, 
and  eloquence,  all  conspire  for  one  end.  Do  you  suppose, 
had  Joshua's  battle  been  on  the  Sabbath,  that  Eliezer  and 
the  Levitcs  would  have  forbidden  the  non-combatants  to 
think  about  their  contending  kindred  on  that  day?  Or  that 


ADVANCE   ON   RICHMOND.  395 

Phinehas  would  have  told  the  worshipers  at  Shiloh,  "Your 
brethren  are  having  a  terrible  civil  war  down  at  Gibeah  to- 
day, but  you  must  think  only  of  your  sacrifices  and  ceremo- 
nial service."  Nay  ;  he  would  have  said,  "  Leave  here  thy 
gift  before  the  altar,  and  let  us  hasten  up  to  yonder  hill, 
where  perchance  we  may  see  the  fearful  strife.  Let  us 
earnestly  pray  for  their  success  ;  let  us  fly  to  the  dreadful 
scene,  and  administer  our  aid  and  comfort  to  the  wounded 
and  dying."  So  now  we  may,  we  ought,  to  pray  and  talk 
on  the  all-absorbing  theme. 

We  are  led  hither,  also,  by  the  request  of  our  Chief  Magis- 
trate, who  desires  us  to  acknowledge  the  goodness  of  God 
in  crowning  our  onward  movement  with  victory.  Especially 
should  we  consider  this  subject,  that  we  may  lift  it  above 
the  bloody  phases  it  presents  to  the  natural  eye,  or  the 
mere  shifts  and  windings  of  politics  that  it  exhibits  to 
some  minds,  into  the  grand  hights  of  divine  workings. 
God  moves  with  our  moving  army  ;  God  fights  with  our 
fighting  soldiers  ;  not  for  the  welfare  of  America,  as  an 
especial  arid  peculiar  nation  ;  that  is  a  heathen's  idea  of 
God,  who  thought  Jove  or  Zeus  was  his  god  only,  and  not 
the  god  of  his  enemy.  He  contends  for  us,  because  He 
has  certain  ends  to  be  consummated  on  the  earth,  that  can 
only  be  effected  through  the  overthrow  of  the  doctrines  and 
usages  of  the  rebellious  confederacy. 

We  may  not  see  Him.  Perhaps  Joshua  did  not  when  he 
stole  up  the  high  wall  of  the  Jordan  valley,  and  through  its 
passes  wound  his  way  to  the  long  and  lofty  hill  upon  which 
Ai  frowned  contemptuously  upon  him.  He  knew  that  that 
city  must  be  taken  or  the  hill  country  of  Palestine  could 
not  be  occupied  by  his  people.  He  knew  that  the  narrow 
gorge  of  the  Jordan  would  soon  cease  to  contain  them,  if 
they  failed  to  gain  a  foothold  upon  the  hights.  It  was  a 
military  necessity.  It  was  an  absolute  necessity.  He  saw 
not  that  his  success  involved  even  the  redemption  of  man. 


396  WHY  GRANT  WILL   SUCCEED. 

He  did  not  fully  know  that  out  of  it  would  come  salvation 
for  the  world.  Even  though  this  inspiring  vision  did  lift 
itself  before  his  eyes,  yet  he  felt  none  the  less  that  his  work 
was  to  deliver  a  nation  of  fugitives  from  destruction,  and 
establish  them  upon  immovable  foundations.  As  in  all 
greatest  duties,  there  was  the  vision  of  future  perfection, 
and  the  present  obligation,  hard,  painful,  bloody. 

"  God  has  conceded  two  sights  to  a  man  — 

One  of  men's  whole  work,  time's  completed  plan, 
The  other  of  the  minute's  work,  man's  first 
Step  to  the  plan's  completeness." 

So  Joshua  might  have  seen  the  infinite  necessities  that 
compelled  the  capture  of  the  hostile  town  ;  but  the  strong, 
hard  duty  of  the  hour  was  its  capture.  We,  too,  looking 
over  the  bloody  and  blackened  field  of  wasting  strife,  look- 
ing at  the  yet  unsettled,  and  perhaps  most  desperate  future, 
may  rightfully  inspire  our  hearts,  as  was  that  of  Joshua, 
with  visions  of  the  plans  of  God  that  necessitate  our  victory. 

This  last  and  greatest  ground  for  our  assurance  of  success 
covers  the  final  issue.  Others,  like  those  that  pressed  im- 
mediately upon  the  mind  of  the  Hebrew  captain,  press  upon 
us.  The  future  of  revelation  may  be  near  or  distant  — 
dim  or  clear.  In  it  America  may  appear  shining  with  a 
celestial  glory,  or  may  be  blotted  out  as  completely  and 
indifferently  as  are  Egypt,  Assyria,  and  Kome,  or  may  shine 
in  as  baleful  light  as  Judea,  whose  central  principles  and 
Person,  like  that  nation,  it  may  have  scornfully  rejected. 

Whatever  be  that  ultimate  summing  up  of  God  concern- 
ing this  nation,  depends  upon  the  manner  in  which  we  re- 
spond to  His  calls  at  the  present  moment. 

It  is  often  said  that  we  are  settling  the  question  for  the 
rights  of  man  in  America  and  in  the  world.  We  are  not 
doing  exactly  this.  For  the  question  of  the  success  of  the 
rights  of  man  does  not  depend  upon  America,  but  upon 
God.  If  we  follow  His  orders  we  may  be  His  favorites  — 


ADVANCE   ON  EICHMOND.  397 

the  ministers  of  this  divine  purpose.  If  we  fail  to  follow 
them,  we  shall  be  cast  aside  as  unceremoniously  as  we  have 
cast  aside  disobedient  or  incompetent  generals,  and  He  will 
make  others  His  officers,  servants,  and  friends.  So,  then, 
we  are  led,  in  considering  our  grounds  for  hoping  to  succeed, 
solely  to  the  consideration  of  the  manner  in  which  we  have 
responded  to  the  demands  of  God.  We  have  no  political 
or  merely  military  problems  to  discuss.  We  trace  our  de- 
feats and  victories  to  no  incompetent  or  competent  general- 
ship. A  higher  law  regulates  these  matters.  Not  that  we 
despise  generalship.  Not  that  we  believe  victory  usually 
follows  virtuous  imbecility  and  defeat  vicious  ability.  Suc- 
cess requires  sagacity,  even  in  the  way  of  righteousness. 
Folly  is  not  God's  favorite.  Moses  was  as  naturally  as  he 
was  supernaturally  gifted.  David  was  of  extraordinary 
powers  independent  of  their  extraordinary  subjugation  to 
the  divine  will.  Paul  was  the  acknowledged  leader  of  the 
Jewish  leaders  before  he  became  the  head  of  the  Christian 
Church.  Luther,  Calvin,  Wesley,  were  men  of  the  amplest 
parts,  independent  of  the  lofty  purpose  in  which  they  em- 
ployed their  genius. 

And  yet  the  wisest  of  minds  set  against  the  will  of  God 
is  weaker  than  the  weakest  working  with  that  will.  The 
mightiest  steamer  tugs  in  vain  against  Niagara's  current, 
the  tiniest  feather  flies  resistlessly  upon  its  rushing  floods. 
So,  in  estimating  the  reasons  for  our  success,  we  shall  ever 
bear  in  mind  that  though  great  generals  are  a  great  neces- 
sity, great  ideas  are  a  greater.  Joshua  was  a  great  general. 
No  superior  appears  in  Hebrew,  if  in  any  other  history. 
Yet  at  the  very  beginning  of  his  campaign  he  meets  with 
an  ignominious  repulse.  He  is  chased  down  the  mountains 
of  Bethel  a  ruinous  rout.  Why  ?  He  had  ceased  to  ally 
himself  with  God.  He  was  but  a  lieutenant  of  the  Divine 
Captain.  He  was  not  in  unison  with  his  commander-in-chief. 
He  flies  as  miserably  as  the  weakest  of  his  soldiers  before 


398  WHY  GRANT   WILL    SUCCEED. 

the  impetuous  mountaineers  —  the  avowed  rebels  of  the 
cause  which  he  was  tamely  supporting.  So  the  eleven  tribes 
—  for  the  clerical  tribe  cooperated  largely  in  the  patriotic 
and  holy  enterprise  —  fled  twice  in  utter  disgrace  and  con- 
fusion before  their  corrupt  and  abominable  brethren  of  Ben- 
jamin and  Gibeah.  They  had  as  good  leaders,  doubtless. 
But  they  were  not  in  earnest  against  the  sin  of  their  breth- 
ren. They  took  up  the  quarrel  compulsorily,  and  not  seri- 
ously —  fearing  for  their  Constitution  more  than  for  their 
God,  and  He  drove  them  down  the  rocky  slope  and  across  the 
broad  meadows  at  its  base  in  unspeakable  panic,  until  they 
had  begun  to  fast,  and  repent,  and  search  their  souls,  and 
seek  for  God's  way  before  they  expected  any  victory. 

In  the  light  of  this  high  principle  we  see  why  we  did 
not  succeed  at  the  first.  We  had  become  almost  as  deeply 
implicated  in  the  sin  of  the  nation  as  our  revolting  brethren. 
We  refused  to  let  the  cry  of  the  slave  rouse  us  from  our 
torpidity  ;  even  after  the  shot  at  a  national  vessel  and  the 
capture  of  a  national  fort  had  stung  us  into  a  war  for  na- 
tional self-preservation,  we  still  vociferated  at  the  top  of  our 
lungs,  "  War  for  union,  not  for  liberty — for  white  men,  not 
for  man  —  for  the  Constitution,  not  for  the  right."  So  we 
rushed  to  Washington — bravely,  no  doubt,  as  did  Joshua's 
men  up  the  sides  of  Ai ;  yet  vain-gloriously,  godlessly,  pro- 
fanely —  stuffed  with  hate,  and  prejudice,  and  all  unclean- 
ness.  Then  came  Big  Bethel,  Bull  Run,  Ball's  Bluff,  with 
their  chastening  experiences.  But  they  did  not  chasten  us. 
The  leaven  began  to  work,  yet  wrought  slowly,  slowly.  A 
young  Napoleon  came  down  from  the  Alleghanies,  and  was 
going  to  conquer  without  God  ;  nay,  against  God.  His 
army  lies  around  him,  superb  in  equipment,  gay  in  capari- 
son, matchless  on  parade,  encumbered  with  material  which 
a  lavish  nation  squandered  upon  them.  He  wanted  to  con- 
quer. Everybody  does.  He  wanted  to  substantiate  the 
fame  which  danced  before  him.  But  he  said,  "  I  must  be 


ADVANCE   ON  EICHMOND.  399 

the  victor  of  a  people  united  on  the  old  basis — slavery  must 
go  out  gradually — not  by  my  right  arm."  He  did  not  like 
it,  did  not  approve  it.  He  wished  its  death.  But  he  would 
not  touch  it.  It  was  the  sacred  Hyena  before  which  we 
bowed  in  adoration  —  which  at  least  we  would  keep  care- 
fully pastured  and  folded  —  not  caged  exactly  —  for  though 
inclosed  in  bars,  he  had  wide  ranging-ground  and  ample 
privilege  to  eat  men,  women,  and  children  by  the  million. 

One  event,  like  Achari's  little  wedge,  showed  the  rotten- 
ness of  that  army,  and  the  certainty  of  its  fate.  God  sent 
two  or  three  sweet  singers  into  the  winter's  camp,  to  be- 
guile a  lonely  hour  of  the  soldiers  with  their  melodies.  They 
were  honest  singers.  Not  such  as  black  their  faces,  and 
travesty  all  sincere  and  truthful  things  to  beguile  bewitched 
ears  of  their  money  and  their  time,  but  men  that  feared 
God,  and  would  sing,  as  did  Miriam,  and  Deborah,  and  Da- 
vid, the  songs  He  taught  them.  They  essayed  to  sing  the 
grandest  hymn  of  the  war ;  solemn  and  stately  as  the  oracles 
of  heaven.  You  know  its  deep  pathos. 

"  We  wait  beneath  the  furnace  blast 
The  pangs  of  transformation  ; 
Not  painlessly  doth  God  recast 
And  mould  anew  the  nation ; 

Hot  burns  the  fire 

Where  wrongs  expire, 

Nor  spares  the  hand, 

That  from  the  land 

Uproots  the  ancient  evil. 

"  What  gives  the  wheat-fields  blades  of  steel? 
What  points  the  rebel  cannon  ? 
What  sets  the  roaring  rabble's  heel 
On  the  old  star-spangled  pennon? 

What  breaks  the  oath 

Of  the  men  o'  the  South? 

What  whets  the  knife 

For  the  Union's  life  ? 

Hark  to  the  answer  —  Slavery ! 


400  WHY   GRANT  WILL   SUCCEED. 

"  Then  waste  no  blows  on  lesser  foes, 
In  strife,  unworthy  freemen ; 
God  lifts  to-day  the  vail,  and  shows 
The  features  of  the  demon ! 

O,  North  and  South, 

Its  victims  both, 

Can  ye  not  cry, 

Let  Slavery  die, 

And  Union  find  in  Freedom  ?  " 

That  hymn  the  soldiers  were  forbidden  to  hear.  From 
that  hour  dated  the  disasters  of  the  Peninsula,  and  the  dis- 
grace of  to-day  ;  while  the  general  who  was  the  mouth- 
piece of  his  commander  in  that  crowd  has  lately  crowned 
his  practical  treason  at  Manassas  with  complete  defeat  at 
Shreveport.  Then  God  left  us  to  the  pride  that  goeth  be- 
fore destruction,  and  the  haughty  spirit  that  precedes  the 
fall.  He  went  not  with  us  into  that  campaign.  Miserable 
destruction  overwhelmed  us. 

And  yet,  as  if  to  show  how  clear  was  His  line  of  action, 
there  was  going  forward  at  that  very  time  another  movement 
on  His  basis.  A  general  .who  had  started  out  determined 
to  conquer — but  hoping  to  do  it  without  touching  the  great 
iniquity,  who  had  offered  to  protect  the  slaveholders  of 
Maryland  against  the  fugacious  losses  of  their  human  prop- 
erty—  had  been  whelmed  in  disgrace  and  defeat  at  Big 
Bethel.  Unlike  every  other  defeated  man,  he  instantly  saw 
that  if  he  would  win  he  must  be  true  to  truth.  And  he  was 
as  instantly  and  as  thoroughly  converted.  He  goes  to 
New  Orleans  in  the  power  of  that  conversion.  Its  forts  fall 
before  him,  as  did  Jericho  before  Joshua.  He  ruled  that 
great  city  in  justice.  He  decreed  liberty  ;  gave  the  freed- 
man  a  uniform,  long  before  Massachusetts  wrung  from  a 
defeated  government  the  privilege  to  organize  her  now 
famous  "  Fifty-Fourth."  He  did  what  the  government  has 
not  yet  done  —  put  men  of  color  in  command  of  the  regi- 
ments he  raised.  Success  throngs  to  him  ;  he  rises  be- 


ADVANCE   ON   RICHMOND.  401 

fore  the  nation,  before  his  foes,  before  the  world, — the  man 
who  has  done  more  than  all  others  to  really  save  the  coun- 
try. He  alone  of  the  generals  who  were  first  appointed  to 
lead  the  assault  upon  the  rebel  Capitol  is  to-day  in  the  field, 
and  under  the  gates  of  the  city.  Arid  he  to-day  stands  so 
strong  in  the  judgment  and  conscience  of  his  countrymen, 
that  should  he  be  defeated  by  superior  forces,  or  superior 
military  scholarship,  he  would  suffer  no  real  loss  in  their 
hearts.  They  know  that  he  means  to  be  right.  He  may 
not  know  all  about  war.  He  knows  that  which  is  of  more 
worth.  He  may  have  been  a  blasphemer,  a  persecutor.  So 
was  Paul.  But  in  this  matter,  if  in  no  other,  he  is  true. 

We  did  not  succeed,  notwithstanding  the  light  that  shone 
at  the  mouth  of  the  Mississippi  ;  the  government  refused  to 
speak  the  word  of  Liberty,  and  destruction  came.  That  word 
appeared,  and  light  broke  dimly  over  the  black  and  madden- 
ing waves.  The  waves  still  roared,  and  were  troubled.  The 
mountains  shook  with  the  swelling  thereof.  But  a  new 
creating  spirit  was  brooding  upon  its  turbulent  depths.  The 
influences  of  regeneration  moved  through  the  seething  mass. 
The  enemy  arose  and  defeated  the  idea  at  the  polls.  It  raged 
again  in  mobs  and  massacre  ;  it  was  savage,  unrelenting. 
The  kings  of  the  earth  took  counsel  together  against  us. 
All  that  passed  by  wagged  their  heads,  exclaiming, — 

"  She  has  gone  down,  our  evil-boding  star, 
Beneath  a  hideous  cloud  of  civil  war, 
Strife  such  as  heathen  slaughterers  abhorred, 
The  lawless  band  who  would  call  no  man  lord, 
In  the  fierce  splendor  of  her  insolent  morn, 
She  has  gone  down  —  the  world's  eternal  scorn." 

It  was  too  late  —  that  hate  and  scorning.  She  had  begun 
to  live.  But  not  yet  was  she  deserving  success.  The  slave 
is  freed  by  compulsion,  not  by  love.  Not  honestly,  but 
meanly,  did  we 

"  Do  good  by  stealth,  and  blush  to  find  it  fame  :  " 
26 


402  WHY  GRANT  WILL  SUCCEED. 

blushed  with  a  real  sense  of  shame.  We  disliked  our  col- 
ored fellow-men.  We  hated  to  call  them  truly  brethren. 
They  must  not  enter  our  armies,  they  must  not  stay  in  our 
borders.  We  will  free  them,  and  expatriate  them.  There- 
fore successes  come  slowly.  The  waters  dash  against  the 
light,  and  almost  obliterate  it.  Burnside  moves  out  only  to 
be  miserably  defeated.  Hooker  takes  up  the  gage  of  battle, 
and  with  a  larger  army  than  the  one  that  is  now  sweeping 
down  to  Richmond,  is  completely  destroyed  in  the  Wilder- 
ness. Flushed  with  success,  and  welcomed  by  bloody  in- 
surrections and  secret  machinations,  the  foe  moves  down 
upon  us  out  from  its  fastnesses.  Wasting  and  destruction 
are  in  all  our  borders.  He  is  barely  repulsed.  We  sit  down 
before  him,  unable  to  take  Ai  or  Gibeah,  unable  to  get  anear  it. 

Meantime  in  the  West  is  another  general,  who  believes 
in  ideas  no  less  than  arms  ;  who  sees  and  accepts  the  call 
of  God.  As  little  and  unknown  as  David  among  his  flocks, 
he  would  have  remained  unknown  but  for  that  God  saw  his 
heart  was  simple,  right,  and  true.  Being  thus,  he  clothed 
him  with  power,  and  the  West  stood  disinthrallcd  from  the 
fetters  of  the  rebellion.  God's  gift  for  our  partial  service 
was  the  freely  flowing  Mississippi.  His  punishment  for  our 
yet  Egyptian  longings  and  rebellions  of  spirit  was  Freder- 
icksburg,  Chancellorsville,  and  the  invasion  of  Pennsylvania. 

But  we  grow  in  righteousness.  The  spirit  of  the  people 
is  becoming  penitent  and  sincere.  We  see  that  not  only  is 
slavery  wrong,  —  caste  is  wrong.  It  is  abominable  in  the 
sight  of  God  for  man  to  look  with  loathing  upon  his  fellow- 
man.  He  made  us  all  alike  —  all  of  one  blood,  all  brothers 
and  sisters,  as  close  as  those  born  of  the  same  father  and 
mother.  We  are  not  yet  cured  of  that  iniquity,  though  we 
are  advancing  thitherward.  We  put  them  into  our  ranks. 
In  one  or  two  instances  we  conferred  on  them  commis- 
sions. Still  we  held  them  in  the  servants'  place  and  at 
servants'  wages.  That  brings  disaster,  Fort  Pillow,  Plym- 


ADVANCE   ON   RICHMOND.  403 

outh,  Shreveport.  The  campaign  opens  most  dismally. 
The  government  pompously  refuses  to  raise  their  wages, 
and  shoots  one  who  asserts,  and  justly,  that  he  was  enlisted 
under  false  pretences  on  the  part  of  the  government,  and 
that  it  has  no  claim  upon  his  services.  Mutiny  mutters 
through  all  the  army. 

Had  Grant  moved  upon  Richmond  with  that  iniquity  un- 
removed,  he  would  be  to-day  a  disgraced  and  ruined  man. 
We  call  him  a  great  general,  and  so  he  is  ;  but  his  general- 
ship could  not  have  saved  him.  God  would  have  given  him 
into  the  hands  of  his  enemies,  as  He  has  given  another  at 
New  Orleans,  whose  reputation  has  been  hardly  less  than 
his  ;  but  who  defrauded  the  freedman  of  his  right  to  nego- 
tiate his  own  terms  for  labor;  who  compelled  him  to  receive 
the  pittance  that  secession  land-owners  proposed  to  give, 
and  forbade  his  being  paid  but  half  of  that  before  the  close 
of  the  year;  who  shut  him  up  on  the  plantations,  and  forbade 
his  crossing  the  boundaries  without  a  pass  —  the  hideous 
reminder  of  his  old  condition  ;  who  stripped  the  epaulets 
from  the  shoulders  of  wealthy  gentlemen,  that  had  won  them 
by  their  valor,  simply  because  they  were  slightly  tinged  with 
a  browner  complexion  than  his  own ;  who  disfranchised  two 
thirds  of  the  Union  men  of  the  State,  and  compelled  the 
election  of  a  rebel  in  heart  over  an  honest  lover  of  union, 
liberty,  and  the  rights  of  man.  And  then,  having  inaugu- 
rated with  a  monster  concert  from  one  who  had  desecrated 
Puritan  Massachusetts  with  his  Sabbath  amusements,  his 
new,  false,  and  unjust  government,  he  moves  out  to  subdue 
his  foes,  and  is  dashed  back  upon  his  capital,  like  a  weed 
torn  up  by  the  sea,  and  hurled  on  the  rocks.  As  a  Presi- 
dential candidate, 

"  He  falls  like  Lucifer 
Never  to  hope  again." 

And  this  man  was  one  of  the  ablest  minds  in  the  land  ; 
the  pet  of  his  commonwealth ;  the  hope  and  pride  of  the 


404  WHY   GRANT   WILL   SUCCEED. 

nation.  What  has  killed  him  ?  God.  He  set  himself 
against  the  Almighty.  He  scorned  the  doctrine  that  there 
was  sentiment  in  politics ;  that  soul  should  appear  in  govern- 
ment. He  is  dashed  to  pieces.  All  is  gone.  Honor,  fame, 
hopes,  and  more  than  all,  a  good  conscience.  Never  was 
there  a  fall  in  this  nation  so  sudden  and  so  irremediable. 
And  why  ?  Not  because  he  lacked  generalship.  Other 
generals  have  failed.  He  lacked  principle.  His  fate  is  a 
warning — a  painful,  dreadful  warning  to  every  man.  Sooner 
or  later,  in  such  hours  as  this,  everything  short  of  truth  and 
justice  is  burned  up,  and  every  one  who  makes  these  idols 
his  trust  is  burned  with  them.  "The  strong  shall  be  as 
tow,  and  the  maker  of  it  as  a  spark,  and  they  shall  both 
burn  together,  and  none  shall  quench  them." 

So,  too,  would  our  chief  army  have  perished,  but  for 
timely  repentance  and  its  meet  works.  The  President  de- 
clares for  ten  months  that  he  has  no  power  to  treat  colored 
soldiers  as  soldiers.  All  at  once,  fearful  lest  Congress  will 
not  give  him,  in  time  for  the  advance,  the  power  that  he 
has  said  he  did  not  have,  his  attorney  general  informs  him 
that  the  original  bill  granted  him  this  power.  Could  he  not 
have  found  that  out  before  ten  months  of  disastrous  trial 
had  opened  his  eyes  ? 

Then  marches  the  new  army  to  battle,  with  colored  soldiers 
as  soldiers  ;  with  colored  cavalry  sweeping  up  to  the  gates 
of  the  rebel  capital.  And  then  and  therefore  comes  the 
victory.  That  is  why  we  shall  succeed.  Our  men  are  con- 
verted to  the  truth.  They  treat  their  associates  in  arms  as 
their  equals,  their  friends.  They  march  together,  fight  to- 
gether, bleed  together,  shout  together,  die  together,  triumph 
together,  —  brothers  in  blood  and  brothers  forever. 

How  must  the  trembling  sinners  of  Richmond  look  aghast 
as  they  see  the  dark  faces  of  their  slaves  riding  insolently 
up  to  their  walls.  Nemesis,  shod  not  now  in  wool,  but 
with  fire,  is  marching  upon  them.  She  brings  the  death  of 


ADVANCE   ON  KICHMOND.  405 

their  pride,  their  power,  their  all.  Their  end  is  coming. 
"Go  up,"  says  God;  "for  I  have  given  them  into  thy  hand." 

But  this  success  will  avail  us  nothing  unless  we  purge 
ourselves  of  the  least  and  last  remains  of  this  iniquity. 
We  must  put  away  from  us  the  unclean  thing.  Not  those 
we  call  unclean,  but  our  prejudices,  far  more  unclean  and 
abominable  in  the  sight  of  God.  Your  soul,  not  your  neigh- 
bor's color,  your  God  hateth.  We  must  abolish  colored 
regiments,  colored  conferences,  colored  churches,  colored 
pews,  and  colored  distinctions  in  everything.  Our  full  sal- 
vation depends  on  our  faithfulness  to  this  duty. 

For,  my  friends,  be  assured  God  cares  but  very  little  for 
you  unless  you  will  aid  Him  in  carrying  out  His  designs  on 
the  earth.  To  that  design  if  America  is  willing  to  contrib- 
ute, well  for  her  ;  if  not,  she  is  broken  in  pieces  as  a  pot- 
ter's vessel.  That  design  is  the  brotherhood  of  man  in 
Christ.  If  we  cooperate  with  Him,  He  will  make  us  His 
vanguard.  If  we  refuse,  He  will  do  with  us  as  He  did  with 
His  more  chosen  and  more  beloved  people — cast  us  off,  and 
raise  up  another  people  who  shall  follow  His  guidance. 

The  world  looks  to  us  to  obey  His  commands  ;  to  expel 
from  our  hearts  the  accursed  thing;  to  lock  foot  and  heart 
with  these  our  brethren,  for  a  courageous  march  across  the 
world.  Europe  hangs  on  the  destiny  of  this  hour.  If  we 
come  out  o£  this  struggle  clear  and  glorious,  if  a  man  irre- 
proachably just  and  fearless  shall  lead  this  nation  out  of 
its  slime  and  sin,  then  the  hundredth  anniversary  of  our 
Independence  will  not  see  a  throne  in  Europe,  so  ripe  is  that 
continent  for  liberty. 

May  God  help  us  so  to  go  on  to  perfection,  that  with  the 
certain  fall  of  the  stronghold  and  strong  arms  of  the  rebel- 
lion before  our  Joshua,  there  shall  be  a  more  perfect  down- 
fall and  destruction  of  the  stronger  holds  of  false  and  fatal 
pride,  that  have  so  long  ruled  and  ruined  our  souls. 

Then,  fearful  as  are  our  calamities,  distressful  as  is  the 


406  WHY   GRANT   WILL   SUCCEED. 

fate  of  many  wounded  heroes,  and  riven  and  bleeding  hearts, 
we  shall  feel  that  their  tears  and  blood  are  not  shed  in  vain. 
As  the  blood  of  brave  Hebrews  won  the  citadels  of  the 
hills  from  heathen  foes,  and  made  them  the  fair  and  chosen 
seats  of  the  Lord  for  a  thousand  years,  so  will  these  sacred 
gifts  secure  for  us  generations  of  peace  and  joy. 

"  God's  hand  within  the  shadow  lays 
The  stones  whereon  His  gates  of  praise 
Shall  rise  at  last." 

And  in  those  ages  to  come,  when  that  temple  shall  stand 
complete,  no  honors  too  great  can  be  paid  to  our  memory. 
The  world's  feet  will  pass  by  the  tomb  of  the  great  Wash- 
ington, to  pause  at  the  mounds  where  his  children,  with 
superior  heroism,  poured  forth  their  blood  to  preserve  and  to 
perfect  the  blessings  he  partially  secured.  Throughout  all 
nations  shall  strong  men  weep  for  gratitude  over  their  un- 
speakable valor,  and  all  the  world,  Asian,  European,  African, 
American,  with  one  united  and  unceasing  impulse,  in  a 
regenerated  and  fraternal  brotherhood  of  man,  shall  rise  up 
and  call  us  blessed. 

"Triumph  not,  fools,  and  weep  not,  ye  faint-hearted. 
Have  ye  believed  that  the  divine  decree 
Of  Heaven  had  given  this  people  o'er  to  perish? 
Have  ye  believed  that  God  would  cease  to  cherish 
This  great  new  world  of  Christian  liberty? 
And  that  our  light  forever  had  departed? 
Nay,  by  the  precious  blood  shed  to  redeem 
The  nation  from  its  selfishness  and  sin, 
By  each  true  heart  that  burst  in  holy  strife, 
Leaving  its  kindred  hearts  to  break  through  life ; 
By  all  the  tears  that  will  not  cease  to  stream 
Forever,  every  desolate  home  within, 
We  will  return  to  our  appointed  place, 
First  in  the  vanguard  of  the  human  race." 


THKEE    SUMMERS    OF    WAE.* 


THE   REVOLUTION   AND    THE   REBELLION. 

"  WHOSE  ARE  THE  FATHERS."  —  Romans  ix.  5. 

E  have  just  slowly  waded  through  the  third  sum- 
mer of  blood.  The  waves  still  roar  and  are 
troubled.  The  mountains  shake  with  the  swell- 
ing thereof.  It  is  well  in  such  an  hour  to 
strengthen  our  souls  with  the  experience  of  our  fathers. 
The  third  year  of  our  revolutionary  struggle  may  be  proper- 
ly placed  beside  the  third  year  of  our  war.  They  were, 
waged  for  the  same  ends,  by  the  same  people,  against  the 
same  pretensions.  Our  foe,  like  that  of  our  fathers,  speak 
our  language  ;  like  that,  seek  our  annihilation  as  a  nation  in 
the  interests  of  slavery  and  despotism.  Our  fortunes  merit 
and  will  reward  comparison.  The  analogy  naturally  resolves 
itself  into  the  military,  the  moral,  and  the  financial. 

1 .  In  a  military  view,  if  we  take  our  stand  at  Philadelphia, 
July  4,  1776,  and  look  over  the  country  which  had  just  been 
declared  free  and  independent,  we  see  not  an  armed  enemy 
in  all  its  borders.  Four  months  before  they  had  been  ex- 


*  A  sermon  preached  in  Boston,  July  4,  1864. 


(407) 


408  THREE   SUMMERS   OF  WAR. 

pelled  from  Boston.  The  nation  was  seemingly  master  of 
the  whole  land.  Yet  they  were  far  from  being  its  undis- 
puted possessors.  Though  Britain  was  ousted,  she  was 
rapidly  entering.  On  that  very  day  the  white  sails  of  her 
army-laden  navy,  moving  down  from  Halifax,  were  off 
Staten  Island.  The  troops  soon  occupied  its  shores,  and 
New  York  was  a  beleageured  town.  On  the  27th  of  August 
their  Bull  Eun  occurred  at  Brooklyn.  Two  weeks  later 
there  was  a  second  panic  at  Harlem,  when  Washington 
vainly  attempted  to  keep  his  men  in  front  of  the  enemy,  and 
exclaimed  in  dismay,  "  Are  these  the  men  with  whom  I  am 
to  defend  America  ?  " 

So  great  was  the  depression  of  the  public  mind  by  that 
disastrous  defeat,  that  Washington,  in  a  letter  to  the  pres- 
ident of  Congress,  dated  the  2d  of  September,  writes  in 
almost  a  state  of  despair.  "  The  check,"  he  says,  "that 
our  detachment  sustained  on  the  2tth  ult.  has  dispirited 
too  great  a  proportion  of  our  troops,  and  filled  their  minds 
with  apprehension  and  despair.  The  militia,  instead  of 
calling  forth  their  utmost  efforts  to  a  brave  and  manly  op- 
position in  order  to  repair  our  losses,  are  dismayed,  intract- 
able, and  impatient  to  return.  Great  numbers  of  them  have 
gone  off;  in  some  instances  almost  by  whole  regiments." 
The  British  were  as  jubilant  and  hopeful  as  the  rebels  at 
Manassas ;  while,  to  complete  the  analogy,  General  McClellan 
appears  on  the  stage  in  the  person  of  General  Lee  (ominous 
conjunction)  as  the  dreamed-of  deliverer,  while  the  defeated 
Washington  is  despised,  if  not  rejected.  An  American 
officer  in  the  camp  writes  to  a  friend,  "  General  Lee  is  hour- 
ly expected,  as  if  from  heaven."  He  had  had  some  minor 
successes  at  the  South,  like  our  then  favorite,  and  was 
looked  upon  for  more  than  two  years  by  many  patriots  as 
our  only  savior. 

We  were  soon  driven  from  New  York,  and  the  American 
cause  would  have  perished  that  year  but  for  the  brilliant 


THE  REVOLUTION  AND  THE  REBELLION    409 

raids  of  Washington  at  Trenton  and  Princeton.  The  next 
spring*  he  was  driven  from  Philadelphia,  after  the  two  fatal 
fields  of  Brandywine  and  Germantown.  The  campaign  was 
redeemed  only  by  the  capture  of  Burgoyne,  in  which  Wash- 
ington gained  nothing,  and  Gates  everything. 

The  terrible  winter  of  Valley  Forge  settles  down  as  a 
shroud  over  the  handful  of  bleeding  and  starving  soldiery. 
The  French  alliance  alone  relieves  the  dismal  prospect.  The 
arrival  of  a  French  fleet  the  next  spring  at  the  mouth  of  the 
Delaware  compels  the  British  evacuation  of  Philadelphia. 
Washington  pursues  and  fights  the  drawn  battle  of  Mon- 
mouth.  In  fact,  no  decisive  victory  in  open  combat  ever 
crowned  his  arms.  The  triumphs  of  Greene  and  Gates  were 
added  to  his  other  troubles. 

Thus  stood  aifairs  in  the  summer  of  1778.  Burgoyne 
defeated,  the  French  alliance  effected  ;  only  these.  The 
following  year  was  one  of  unvarying  disaster.  We  at- 
tempted to  take  Newport,  in  conjunction  with  the  French 
fleet,  and  failed.  New  Bedford  was  burned,  and  the  adjacent 
country  laid  waste.  The  coast  of  New  Jersey  was  similarly 
ravaged,  and  a  body  of  infantry,  under  Pulaski,  was  sur- 
prised and  bayoneted,  after  the  fashion  faithfully  followed  at 
Fort  Pillow.  The  winter  saw  Savannah  and  Charleston, 
with  the  whole  country  south  of  Virginia,  fall  into  the  hands 
of  the  enemy.  Norfolk  and  Portsmouth  were  burned,  and 
property  to  the  amount  of  two  millions  of  dollars  destroyed. 
New  Haven  and  the  Connecticut  coast  were  sacked.  Wash- 
ington with  a  little  force  was  cooped  up  in  the  Highlands, 
incapable  of  relieving  the  ravaged  sea-coast,  or  of  descend- 
ing upon  New  York,  and  avenging  the  insults  on  the  head 
of  the  enemy.  Thus  stood  the  military  situation  at  the  end 
of  three  years.  A  ragged,  mutinous  corps  was  all  that  were 
between  the  country  and  its  subjugation.  They  were  power- 
less to  assail  or  to  defend.  The  capture  of  Stony  Point, 
ten  days  afterward,  was  almost  instantly  followed  by  its 


410  THREE    SUMMERS   OF   THE   WAR. 

abandonment,   so   difficult    did   Washington  find    it,   before 

Wordsworth,  — 

"To  keep 
Heights  which  his  soul  was  competent  to  gain." 

Compare  this  condition  of  affairs  with  ours  in  the  same 
space  of  time. 

Every  post  south  of  the  Potomac  and  the  Ohio,  at  the  be- 
ginning, was  in  the  hands  of  the  rebels ;  the  whole  of  Kentucky, 
of  Missouri  outside  of  St.  Louis,  of  Virginia,  West  and  East, 
of  the  Mississippi  below  Cairo.  The  Relay  House  was  our 
advance  post.  Three  years  have  passed,  and  where  are  we  ? 
Swept  back  in  terror  from  our  first  field,  we  have  steadily 
gained  ground.  Western  Virginia  is  ours,  and  the  most  of 
Eastern ;  Missouri,  Kentucky,  Tennessee,  Arkansas,  most 
of  Mississippi,  portions  of  Louisiana,  including  the  metrop- 
olis of  the  Gulf,  Northern  Alabama,  and  Georgia,  the  edge 
of  Florida  and  South  Carolina.  The  lines  of  the  rebellion 
are  pressed  back  in  their  center  from  the  Ohio  almost  to  the 
Gulf. 

The  Mississippi  has  been  stripped  of  its  batteries.  No 
frowning  forts  prevent  commerce.  Its  capital  receives 
Massachusetts  principle  from  a  Massachusetts  governor. 
Their  second  city,  Nashville,  second  to  none  in  its  pride  of 
place,  is  ruled  by  the  candidate  of  the  friends  of  union  and 
liberty  for  the  second  office  in  the  gift  of  the  nation.  The 
foe  is  penned  up  in  Charleston,  Richmond,  Atlanta,  and 
Mobile,  except  the  few  that  ravage  the  plains  of  Texas. 
All  of  these  are  under  investment.  Charleston  is  half 
consumed,  and  Richmond  threatened  by  the  national 
cannon. 

We  are  not  compelled,  as  was  Washington,  simply  to 
repel  assaults  on  our  intrenchments.  Our  troops  celebrated 
their  last  4th  of  July,  not  as  they  did  the  one  before,  in 
victories  won  on  Northern  soil,  but  in  the  very  center  of 
the  rebellion,  with  their  hand  at  its  throat  and  their  foot  on 


THE   REVOLUTION   AND   THE   REBELLION.         411 

its  heart.     Richmond  and  Atlanta,  the  two  foci  of  the  blazing 

comet  that 

'•  From  his  horrid  hair 
Shakes  pestilence  and  war," 

are  within  the  guns  and  the  grasp  of  our  armies.  How 
superior  are  our  successes  to  those  our  fathers  had  won  in 
the  same  space  of  time  ! 

2.  The  moral  victories  are  not  less  striking,  nor  is  the 
comparison  of  the  two  wars  in  the  progress  of  their  ideas 
less  valuable.  The  Declaration  was  thought  premature  by 
many  friends  of  the  cause,  as  has  been  its  twin  brother,  the 
Proclamation.  At  the  first  ballot  in  Congress,  June  8,  only 
seven  States  out  of  the  thirteen  voted  in  its  favor.  Introduced 
by  Richard  Henry  Lee  of  Virginia,  and  seconded  by  John 
Adams  of  Massachusetts,  it  was  opposed  by  Dickinson  and 
Wilson  of  Pennsylvania,  Robert  R.  Livingston  of  New 
York,  and  Edward  Rutledge  of  South  Carolina,  not  because 
it  was  wrong,  but  premature.  July  1,  it  was  opposed  by 
four  States,  and  was  finally  carried,  with  New  York  silent, 
but  hostile.  There  was  a  like  division  of  sentiment  out- 
side of  Congress. 

Mr.  Lincoln's  Proclamation  has  provoked  far  less  bitter- 
ness among  the  friends  of  the  Union  than  did  the  Declara- 
tion ;  yet  we  find  that  two  years  later,  when  British  com- 
missioners appeared  in  New  York,  and  sought  to  beguile 
us  from  our  steadfastness,  they  were  unanimously,  and 
even  contemptuously,  repulsed.  It  was  then  that  the  offer 
of  ten  thousand  pounds  and  a  high  office  to  Dr.  Rush  drew 
from  him  the  famous  reply,  "  I  am  not  worth  purchasing, 
but  such  as  I  am,  the  king  of  England  is  not  rich  enough  to 
buy  me."  They  declare  that  Great  Britain  has  granted  all 
the  colonists  originally  demanded,  appeal  to  the  colonial 
government  against  Congress,  seek  to  stir  up  Protestant 
and  Puritan  prejudices  by  calling  the  French  allies  Papists, 
entreat  the  lovers  of  peace  not  to  let  the  ambition  of  a  few 


412  THREE    SUMMERS   OF   THE   WAK. 

members  of  Congress  ruin  their  whole  people,  and  threaten 
increased  chastisement  if  their  offers  are  rejected. 

All  their  efforts  were  vain.  Congress  coolly  publishes 
their  appeal  in  the  public  journals,  and  treats  them  with 
confident  disdain.  So  great  had  grown  the  public  sentiment 
in  these  two  years  of  most  moderate  success. 

In  other  respects  the  public  conscience  had  not  grown. 
Though  the  war  was  waged  professedly  for  the  rights  of 
man,  they  still  failed  to  see  the  iniquity  of  slavery.  In  no 
instance  did  a  state  decree  emancipation,  and  summon  its 
slaves  to  its  banners.  These  were  treated  usually  as  they  are 
by  the  rebels  to-day  —  made  useful  in  the  camp,  sometimes 
in  the  field,  but  with  no  idea  of  granting  them  their  rights 
as  equals.  In  the  third  summer  of  the  war,  1779,  a  body 
of  soldiers,  having  captured  some  slaves  with  a  British  out- 
post on  Lake  Erie,  sold  them  for  five  hundred  pounds,  and 
divided  the  money  as  booty.  To-day,  our  soldiers,  making 
such  a  capture,  would  put  arms  in  their  hands,  and  welcome 
them  to  their  side  as  brethren. 

But  as  they  progressed  rapidly  in  their  main  idea  of 
independence,  so  have  we  in  ours  of  liberty  and  union.  It 
is  doubtful  if,  in  the  winter  of  1860—61,  one  man  in  a  thou- 
sand believed  in  a  free  and  united  nation.  The  South  was 
defiant,  the  North  indifferent.  If  the  Union  stood,  it  seemed 
evident  that  it  would  be  only  as  the  tool  of  the  slave  power. 
Now,  the  men  who  believe  in  its  dissolution  are  as  few  or  as 
powerless  as  those  who  then  believed  in  its  salvation ;  while 
through  the  South,  in  a  multitude  of  places,  are  its  numer- 
ous, fearless,  and  tireless  friends  that  then  were  gagged  by 
the  mailed  hand  of  secession. 

So  also  —  and  herein  we  augur  the  best  of  results  —  the 
public  conscience  has  grown  more  rapidly  than  the  public 
resolution.  When  the  war  broke  out,  how  deep  was  our 
detestation  of  the  negro !  how  feeble  our  hatred  of  slavery ! 
Probably  three  fourths  of  the  three  months'  soldiers  were  far 


THE  REVOLUTION  AND  THE  EEBELLION.    413 

better  haters  of  the  cause  of  freedom  than  slavery.  They 
went  not  chiefly  as  volunteers,  but  because  they  were 
members  of  already  organized  regiments.  The  first  regi- 
ments of  volunteers  were  of  a  far  different  composition, 
though  even  these  grew  slowly  in  the  faith.  Yet  they  grew. 
Negro  soldiers,  but  a  year  ago,  marching  through  the  streets 
of  Boston,  amazed  the  whole  land ;  now  they  are  as  un- 
noticed as  their  white  brethren  in  Baltimore,  and  even 
march,  though  fortunately  for  their  foes,  as  prisoners  and 
without  arms  through  the  streets  of  Richmond,  exciting  un- 
speakable terror  even  in  this  unsubstantial  military  form  in 
their  Macbeth  murderers.  They  have  won  their  way  to  the 
front ;  they  will  yet  to  commissions  and  commands.  All 
honors  await  patient  and  steadfast  souls. 

Meanwhile  elsewhere  the  renewal  of  the  land  goes  for- 
ward. Congress  has  abolished  all  its  fugitive  slave  law 
iniquities,  including  that  which  George  Washington  signed 
and  Josiah  Quincy*  resisted.  It  has  also  abolished  dis- 
tinctions of  color  in  the  cars  of  the  capital,  opens  the  courts 
to  their  testimony  and  their  rights  as  appellants  —  com- 
pelling Judge  Taney,  we  trust,  ere  he  shall  vacate  his  seat, 
to  respect  many  a  right  where  he  declared  none  existed.  It 
prohibits  slavery  in  the  Territories,  and  almost  secured 
universal  suffrage  there,  and  the  abolishment  of  slavery  in 
all  the  laud.  Maryland  accepts  the  ordinance  of  1181  at 
the  same  time  that  Congress  abolishes  that  of  1193. 

Thus  in  our  ideas  we  have  advanced  as  rapidly  as  our 
fathers  did  in  theirs.  They  waxed  strong  in  independence 
amid  the  storms  of  disaster  and  death.  So  have  we  in  our 
equally  great  idea  of  union,  and  far  greater  one  of  liberty. 

3.  The  financial  question  is  of  far  less  importance  than 
that  of  ideas  or  arms.  We  could  afford  to  sacrifice  all  our 
business  and  all  our  wealth  so  that  we  should  preserve  un- 
weakened  our  national  boundaries  and  political  principles. 
Yet  in  this  field  we  have  great  ground  for  gratulation. 


414  THREE   SUMMERS   OF  THE  WAR. 

Many  are  affrighted  at  the  value  of  gold  and  the  deprecia- 
tion of  the  currency.  They  may  find  encouragement  in  the 
history  of  their  fathers. 

The  issues  of  paper  began  with  the  issue  of  the  Declara- 
tion. In  eighteen  months  it  amounted  to  twenty  millions 
of  dollars  of  Continental  currency,  besides  large  colonial 
issues.  Thus  far  there  had  been  no  depreciation.  In  this 
they  were  our  superiors  as  financiers,  for  our  gold  remained 
at  par  a  year  only  after  the  war  began.  Their  decline,  how- 
ever, was  much  more  rapid.  Loans,  lotteries,  and  other 
devices  were  tried,  but  without  success.  New  bills  of 
credit  must  be  issued  ;  they  were  refused  by  the  people. 
Congress  declared  that  they  "  ought  to  pass  current,  and  be 
deemed  equal  to  the  same  nominal  sums  in  Spanish  dollars," 
and  that  "  all  who  refused  to  take  them  should  be  considered 
enemies  of  the  United  States."  But  still  their  best  friends 
declined  to  receive  their  currency  as  equivalent  to  silver. 
The  States  were  called  upon  to  make  this  refusal  penal,  but 
declined.  They  were  urged  to  tax  their  people,  but  also 
refused.  Again  appear  the  Continental  greenbacks.  Sixty- 
three  and  one  half  millions  were  issued  in  1778,  making  the 
total  to  that  date  over  a  hundred  millions  of  dollars.  By 
the  4th  of  July,  1779,  they  had  reached  one  hundred  and 
sixty  millions  of  dollars.  The  dollar  went  down  to  five 
cents.  The  loans  and  foreign  debt  were  only  thirty-seven 
millions  and  a  half.  A  riot  broke  out  in  Philadelphia  while 
Congress  was  in  session  in  consequence  of  this  disastrous 
condition  of  affairs.  At  the  end  of  the  year  the  issue  had 
reached  two  hundred  millions,  and  the  value,  three  cents.* 

Thus  stood,  or  rather  thus  fell,  at  the  end  of  three  years,  the 
finances  of  the  Revolution.  There  was  a  deep  beyond  this 
lowest  deep,  whither  they  plunged  before  the  paper  Declara- 
tion of  1776  became  a  living  reality.  How  do  our  three 
years  of  conflict  compare  with  these  ?  Our  loans  are 
negotiated  readily,  our  interest  paid  in  gold  steadily.  Our 

*  See  Note  XV. 


THE  REVOLUTION  AND  THE  REBELLION.    415 

currency  has  reached  six  hundred  millions,  or,  with  the  local 
issues,  eight  hundred  millions  ;  not  thrice  the  amount  of 
theirs.  Two  dollars  and  a  half,  not  thirty  dollars,  can  buy  a 
Spanish  dollar.  Our  real  estate  and  other  property,  which 
was  estimated  at  more  than  sixteen  thousand  millions  in 
1860,  has  not  decreased  in  value.  In  this  most  tremulous 
of  all  the  nerves  of  society  there  is  unspeakably  less  agitation 
than  in  the  days  when  Jay  brooded,  like  Chase  and  Fes- 
senden,  over  this  question  of  finance,  and  Congress  wore 
anxious  brows  in  their  painful  and  ineffectual  deliberations. 
The  results  of  this  state  of  the  finances  were  not  unlike 
what  prevail  to-day.  The  extravagance  and  seeming  abun- 
dance of  these  times  obtained  then.  "  If  I  were  called  upon 
to  draw  a  picture  of  the  times  and  the  men/'  says  Washing- 
ton, in  a  letter  to  Colonel  Harrison,  the  father  of  the  future 
president,  dated  December  30,  IT 78,  "  from  what  I  have 
heard  and  seen,  and  in  part  know,  I  should  in  one  word  say 
that  idleness,  dissipation,  and  extravagance  seem  to  have 
laid  fast  hold  of  most  of  them  ;  that  speculation,  peculation, 
and  an  insatiable  thirst  for  riches  seem  to  have  got  the  better 
of  every*  other  consideration,  and  almost  of  every  order  of 
men  ;  that  party  disputes  and  personal  quarrels  are  the 
great  business  of  the  day,  while  the  momentous  concerns  of 
an  empire,  a  great  and  accumulating  debt,  ruined  finances, 
depreciated  money,  and  want  of  credit,  which  in  its  con- 
sequences is  want  of  everything,  are  but  secondary  con- 
siderations." At  Philadelphia  he  saw  and  lamented  the 
folly  and  extravagance  of  the  people,  "  spending  three  and 
four  hundred  pounds  for  an  assembly,  a  concert,  a  dinner,  a 
supper,  while  the  great  part  of  the  officers  of  the  army, 
from  absolute  necessity,  were  quitting  the  service,  and  the 
more  virtuous  few,  rather  than  do  this,  were  sinking  by  sure 
degrees  to  beggary  and  want."  "Meantime,"  says  Irving, 
"  it  was  hard  to  recruit  the  armies.  There  was  abundance 
of  employment,  wages  were  high,  the  value  of  money  low, 


416  THREE    SUMMERS   OF  THE   WAR. 

consequently  there  was  but  little  temptation  to  enlist." 
How  aptly  do  these  times  mirror  forth  the  same  image  ! 
Washington,  too,  found  contractors  his  bane.  He  calls 
them  "the  murderers  of  our  cause,"  and  exclaims,  "I 
would  to  God  some  one  of  the  more  atrocious  in  each  State, 
was  hung  in  gibbets  upon  a  gallows  five  times  as  high  as 
the  one  prepared  for  Haman.  No  punishment,  in  my  opin- 
ion, is  too  severe  for  the  man  who  can  build  his  greatness 
on  his  country's  ruin."  He  would  have  deemed  Forts 
Warren  and  Lafayette  slight  repayal  for  our  modern  plun- 
derers. The  rise  of  "  shoddy  "  was  more  marked,  and  its 
sway  more  perfect,  than  in  this  day.  Says  Hildreth,  "  In 
place  of  the  old  mercantile  interest,  almost  annihilated  by 
the  Revolution,  a  new  money  interest  had  sprung  into  exist- 
ence since  the  war,  and  as  the  resources  of  Congress  and 
the  States  diminished  with  the  rapid  decline  of  public  credit, 
began  to  exercise  a  constantly  increasing  influence  over 
American  affairs.  Sudden  fortunes  had  been  acquired  by 
privateering,  by  rise  in  the  prices  of  foreign  goods,  by  the 
sutlers  who  followed  the  camp,  and  by  others  who  knew  how 
to  make  money  out  of  the  great  public  expenditure.'  It  was 
remarked  that  while  the  honest  and  patriotic  were  impover- 
ished, rogues  and  Tories  were  fast  growing  rich." 

They  had  no  stocks  in  those  days,  and  so  put  lotteries  in 
their  place  —  a  fitting  substitute.* 

*  In  this  matter  of  finance  we  are  following  precisely  the  experience 
of  England  in  her  attempts  to  ruin  Napoleon.  "  For  eighteen  years  she 
suspended  specie  payments  in  her  desperate  struggle  with  France.  Bank 
of  England  notes  were  made,  in  effect,  a  '  legal  tender,'  by  every  person 
being  protected  from  arrest  who  offered  them  in  payment  of  a  debt,  and 
by  the  bank  being  guarded  by  law  from  any  suit  for  non-payment  of  its 
notes.  For  eighteen  years  there  was  thus  in  Great  Britain  an  inconverti- 
ble paper  currency.  From  1797  to  1815  the  Bank  of  England  tripled 
its  circulation,  and  the  country  banks  increased  from  two  hundred,  in  the 
same  time,  to  nine  hundred  and  forty,  or  almost  five  times.  The  deprecia- 
tion was,  of  course,  enormous,  not  shown  so  much  in  the  price  of  gold, 
which  only  reached  forty-one  in  1812-13,  but  especially  in  values  :  one 


THE   REVOLUTION   AND   THE   REBELLION.          417 

4.  In  other  respects  their  condition  was  more  deplorable. 

(1.)  Mutiny  broke  out  in  the  camp.  Whole  regiments, 
with  their  officers,  being  ordered  upon  expeditions,  refused. 
With  great  difficulty  did  Washington  prevail  upon  them  to 
abide  faithful.  Poverty  at  home  and  nakedness  in  the  camp 
were  destructive  of  patriotism. 

(2.)  Sectional  jealousies  embittered  the  army.  The  South 
loathed  the  North ;  the  North  was  jealous  of  the  South.  New 
York  despised  New  England  ;  New  England  hated  New 
York.  The  French  assumed  superior  airs,  which  terribly 
inflamed  the  American  mind.  It  was  even  thought  danger- 
ous for  D'Estaing  to  moor  his  fleet  in  Boston  harbor. 

(3.)  Added  to  this  were  the  jealousies  and  feuds  of  the 
officers.  Duels  were  not  unusual.  Gates,  Lafayette,  Mifflin, 
and  others  were  involved  in  them.  Stark  threw  up  his  com- 
mission in  a  pet  at  being  slighted ;  Greene  chafed  at  his 
post  of  quartermaster-general ;  Wilkinson,  Conway,  Gates, 

pound  in  paper  became  worth  but  ten  shillings  in  1813,  and,  according  to 
Doubleday,  fell  to  seven  or  eight  shillings,  that  is,  a  depreciation  of  near- 
ly seventy-five  per  cent.  The  price  of  wheat  rose  from  53  s.  Id.  a 
quarter  in  1797  to  125  s.  5  d.  in  1812 ;  oats  from  16  s.  9  d.  to  44  s. ;  wool 
from  3s.  8  d.  to  10s.  The  rent  of  arable  land  increased  from  £88  6  s. 
3|d.  to  the  hundred  acres,  in  1790,  to  £1G1  12  s.  7j  d.  in  1812.  But  un- 
like America,  no  increase  of  prices  arose  in  England  from  diminished 
labor ;  on  the  contrary,  labor  was  supplied  in  abundance,  and  wages  did 
not  rise  with  other  values ;  the  final  rise  being  only  about  twenty  per 
centum  in  many  parishes.  In  this  depreciated  currency,  worth  forty  or 
fifty  per  cent,  below  what  the  foreign  fund-holders  had  supposed  them- 
selves pledged  to  receive,  did  England  pay  her  former  creditors.  In- 
dividuals, of  course,  complained,  but  it  was  manifest  she  could  do  nothing 
else,  and  this  '  repudiation '  has  never,  we  believe,  been  thrown  in  her 
teeth.  The  enormous  volume  of  paper  money,  amounting,  according  to 
the  best  authorities,  to  four  hundred  and  fifty  millions  of  dollars  in  1815, 
naturally  stimulated  speculation  and  extravagance  to  the  highest  degree, 
and  left  its  bad  effects  on  the  national  habits.  Still,  despite  all  the  infla- 
tion, and  with  a  public  debt  in  1815  of  some  sixty-seven  hundred  mil- 
lions of  dollars,  England  resumed  specie  payments  within  four  years 
after  the  termination  of  the  war,  and  began  a  career  of  prosperity  which 
has  made  her  the  richest  nation  in  the  world." 

27 


418  THREE   SUMMERS  OF   THE   WAR. 

Schuyler,  and  many  others  were  removed,  or  removed  them- 
selves. Above  all,  cabals  flourished  against  the  commandcr- 
in-chief.  He  was  for  a  time  less  popular  than  Gates  with 
Congress  and  the  nation,  and  came  near  losing  his  command 
through  the  violent  conflicts  that  raged  around  him. 

In  these  minor  yet  not  unimportant  points  we  see  how 
much  more  kindly  Providence  has  dealt  with  us.  No  star- 
vation has  Avrought  mutiny  in  the  camp  ;  no  jealousies  and' 
feuds  among  the  officers  have  proceeded  to  blood  ;  no  cabals 
have  materially  weakened  our  cause ;  no  sectional  jealousies 
have  separated  the  soldiers.  The  flags  of  every  State  have 
waved  together  in  the  smoke  of  battle,  filling  their  followers 
with  a  common  enthusiasm,  which  has  only  provoked  them 
to  love  and  good  works.  If  we  consider  how  frequent  were 
personal  encounters  in  the  West  and  South  before  the  war, 
and  how  intense  were  sectional  jealousies  and  animosities, 
especially  against  New  England,  we  have  great  reason  to 
thank  God  and  take  courage  at  the  marked  harmony  and 
cordiality  of  men  and  States  during  the  fearful  struggle. 

"  After  the  fathers  shall  be  the  children."  In  duty,  in 
suffering,  in  reward  we  are  the  rightful  descendants  of  these 
patient,  persistent,  triumphant  heroes.  Our  cause  is  as 
holy,  our  success  as  sure.  We  may  be  called  to  emulate 
their  virtues  amid  yet  greater  sacrifices.  We  may  see  our 
wealth  melt  away.  National  bankruptcy  may  be  our  ex- 
perience also.  Our  credit  may  vanish  from  foreign  markets 
and  our  own.  Our  tables  may  be  thinly  spread  with  the  poor- 
est fare  ;  our  g'arments  may  be  of  the  coarsest  fabric  ;  our 
wharves,  vessels  may  rot  at  them  ;  and  before  our  cities 
foreign  armaments  may  hover.  The  dead  may  lie  in  every 
house,  and  mourning  fill  all  the  land.  Still  the  great  ques- 
tion is  before  us.  Shall  we  prove  our  right  to  the  blessings 
God  has  conferred  upon  us  ?  Will  we  show  ourselves 
heroic  sons  of  heroic  sires  ? 

To  that  state  our  foe  is  reduced.     What  is  their  money 


THE   REVOLUTION   AND   THE   REBELLION.         419 

worth  ?  Yet  do  they  fight  less  strenuously  ?  And  for 
what  ?  An  empire  of  sin  and  hell  —  freedom  to  iniquity  of 
every  kind  and  of  every  degree  of  baseness ;  to  overthrow 
the  government  and  the  institutions  upon  which  hang  the 
hopes  of  the  world  ;  to  establish  despotism  here,  to  establish 
it  everywhere  ;  to  put  Maximilian  safe  upon  his  stolen  seat ; 
to  abolish  liberty  in  Chili  and  Peru ;  to  extirpate  democracy  in 
Europe  and  America.  If  they  succeed,  we  die.  Crushed  by 
enormous  debts,  distracted  by  standing  armies,  by  burning 
animosities  and  divisions,  we  shall  crumble  into  fragments, 
and  the  millennial  glory  that  seemed  breaking  upon  the  earth 
will  fade  away,  while  the  darkness  of  death  will  enshroud 
the  people.  Then  let  the  minions  of  tyranny  exult. 

"  Shout,  through  your  dungeons  and  palaces,  Freedom  is  o'er!  " 

What  are  our  losses,  actual  or  possible,  to  such  a  catas- 
trophe ?  Shall  Boston  and  New  York  be  as  Hamburg,  mere 
commercial  towns,  with  no  influence  beyond  their  suburbs  ? 
Shall  rent  and  rending  States  tear  each  other  in  their  mutual 
ferocity  ?  Shall  liberty  become  servitude,  and  the  world 
be  thrust  back  into  the  cave  of  despair,  from  which  it  is 
emerging  ?  Then  let  us  whine,  and  talk  of  ruin,  because 
gamblers  crowd  gold  toward  three  hundred  per  cent.  Ruin  ? 
Well  would  it  be  if  this  insane  thirst  for  wealth  that  is  mad- 
dening the  people  were  instantly  ruined.  Well  would  it  be  if 
trade  should  retire  to  the  legitimate  channels  that  it  has  so 
fearfully  and  destructively  overflowed.  Well  would  it  be  if 
our  conceit  and  arrogance  were  ruined.  But  not  our  cause, 
nor  our  country.  Of  these  we  must  say,  "I  am  persuaded  that 
neither  poverty  nor  anguish,  neither  false  friends  nor  fierce 
foes,  neither  treason  nor  death,  shall  separate  me  from  the 
grand,  eternal  principles  of  our  fathers,  of  our  fathers'  God." 

Upon  us  the  ends  of  the  world  have  come.  We  are  the 
depository  of  the  civil  principles  of  the  millennium.  There 
is  nothing  more  theoretically  perfect  in  the  secrets  of 


420  THREE    SUMMERS   OF   THE   WAR. 

Divine  Wisdom  for  the  construction  of  human  society  than 
has  been  given  to  us.  If  we  shall  abandon  them  through 
love  of  gain,  or  fear  of  poverty,  we  shall  be  accursed  of  God 
and  all  mankind,  as  were  his  chosen  people  for  like  treason. 
The  American  name,  now  the  highest,  will  be  the  lowest  in 
all  the  earth.  The  American  flag  will  be  the  emblem  of  dis- 
honor. Did  England  ask,  How  much  will  it  cost  to  defeat 
Napoleon  ?  Reverse  after  reverse  for  a  score  of  years  did 
not  daunt  her  purpose.  A  Nelson  slain,  and  the  supremacy 
of  the  seas  slain  with  him,  an  impoverished  currency,  dis- 
tractions at  home  and  disaster  abroad, — these  made  her  not 
waver.  She  persevered  unto  the  end ;  and  for  what  ?  To 
overthrow  democracy  in  Europe,  in  England,  in  the  world. 
Shall  we  be  less  faithful  to  the  truth  than  she  was  to  error? 
Shall  we  cringe,  and  crawl,  and  submit  to  disunion  or  a  viler 
reunion  because  politicians  plot  for  perfidious  peace,  and 
speculators  press  prices  to  fabulous  hights  ?  Not  if  they 
multiply  their  stratagems  and  their  prices  a  tho'usand  fold. 

There  may  be  worse  years  before  us,  as  there  were  before 
our  fathers  at  the  close  of  the  summer  of  1779.  Our  loans 
may  fail,  our  currency  depreciate,  distress  and  death  may 
stalk  through  the  land.  What  matters  it  ?  If  faithful  to 
God,  He  will  give  us  the  victory.  The  work  will  be  done. 
Slavery  shall  die.  Our  foes  shall  be  made  our  footstool. 
Our  fathers  shall  not  disdain  their  sons.  Let  us  be  of  good 
courage,  and  take  joyfully  the  spoiling  of  our  goods,  know- 
ing that  there  is  in  store  for  us  a  more  abundant  recompense. 

"  O,  well  for  him  whose  will  is  strong ; 
He  suffers,  but  he  will  not  suffer  long; 
He  suffers,  but  he  cannot  suffer  wrong. 
For  him  nor  moves  the  loud  world's  random  mock, 
Nor  all  calamity's  hugest  waves  confound, 
Who  seems  a  promontory  of  rock, 
That  compassed  round  with  turbulent  sound, 
In  middle  ocean  meets  the  surging  shock, 
Tempest-buffeted,  citadel  crowned." 


THE    CRISIS     HOUK.* 


"  TURN  YE,  TURN   YE,  FROM    YOUR    EVIL   WAYS  :    FOR  WHY   WILL    YE    DIE, 

O  HOUSE  OF  ISRAEL?" — Ezekiel  xxxiii.  11. 


HREE  years  of  war !  The  three  months  which  we 
were  told  at  the  beginning,  by  the  most  influential 
man  in  the  nation,  was  to  see  its  completion,  have 
been  painfully  stretched  into  years.  Again  and 
again,  and  yet  again,  have  our  harvests  of  brave  men  been 
swept  down  by  the  reaper  Death.  Myriads  of  souls  of 
heroes  have  descended  untimely  to  Hades,  and  still  the 
bloody  sickle  is  thrust  in,  and  still  the  dreadful  harvest  is 
gathered. 

A  nation  that  had  almost  ceased  to  believe  in  war,  where 
peace  societies  flourished,  and  peace  ideas  were  in  authority, 
where  a  uniform  was  a  bauble  pleasing  chiefly  to  the  eye  of 
children,  where  soldiering  had  become  the  synonym  of  folly 
and  extravagance,  where  every  one  was  fancying  that  the 
era  of  armed  settlements  of  difficulties  had  passed,  at  least 
for  this  country,  and  that  the  Supreme  Court  and  the  ballot- 
box  were  its  permanent  substitutes  —  in  such  a  land  has 
raged  for  forty  months  the  most  terrific,  the  most  bloody, 

*  A  sermon  preached  in  Boston  on  the  occasion  of  the  National  Fast, 

August  4,  1804. 

(421) 


422  THE   CRISIS   HOUR. 

the  most  costly,  the  most  violent  war  of  the  age,  —  we  may 
truly  say,  with  the  great  Napoleon's  campaigns  before  us,  — 
of  the  century  and  of  civilization.  For  that  great  captain, 
in  the  same  space  of  time,  neither  mustered  nor  mastered 
such  mighty  armies,  neither  swept  over  such  breadth  of  ter- 
ritory nor  slaughtered  so  many  milliards  of  men.  Not  less 
than  three  millions,  probably  three  millions  and  a  half,  of 
men  have  been  engaged  in  active  strife  on  this  lately  most 
peaceful  soil.  A  number  almost  exactly  equal  to  that  of 
the  victims  whose  cries  to  God  caused  the  conflict,  have 
thus  been  busily  and  too  successfully  striking  at  each  other's 
hearts.  Strange  coincidence  !  Nay,  a  marvelous  Provi- 
dence, rather  —  a  revelation  of  the  righteous  judgment  of 
God.  He  saw  His  children  writhing  under  the  lash,  and 
the  lust  of  their  oppressors,  under  the  neglect,  and  scorn,  and 
contumely  of  the  whole  nation.  He  has  meted  out  a  meas- 
ure according  to  our  sin.  "  There  are  four  millions  crowded 
into  that  black  hole  of  America,"  He  says  —  "  four  millions 
of  My  dear,  despised  children.  Thirty  millions  walk  proudly 
the  upper  deck,  lift  up  haughty  eyes  to  heaven,  and  present 
a  daily  prayer  that  My  soul  hateth.  '  Lord,  I  thank  Thee 
that  I  am  not  as  this  negro.'  The  four  millions  of  their 
brethren  also,  daily,  from  the  depths  of  their  darkness  arid 
distress,  cry  to  Me."  And  the  Lord  hearkened  and  heard. 
He  descended  from  heaven.  He  set  the  battle  in  array. 
He  made  brother  spring  at  the  throat  of  brother,  until,  to 
the  number  of  the  enslaved,  including  even  their  wives  and 
little  ones,  the  mighty  men  are  set  against  the  mighty, 
while  death  and  mourning  fill  all  the  land. 

For  the  fourth  time  since  this  collision  cast  its  bloody 
blackness  athwart  the  heavens,  have  we  been  summoned  by 
the  National  Executive  to  prostrate  ourselves  at  the  foot- 
stool of  God  in  penitence  and  prayer  for  the  salvation  of  the 
nation.  Each  time  the  wail  has  been  deeper,  as  if  the  fear 
increased  rather  than  diminished  with  each  year ;  as  if 


THE   CALL  OF  GOD.  423 

rather  the  true  sense  of  our  peril,  and  of  the  only  source 
of  our  salvation,  began  to  break  more  and  more  upon  our 
blinded,  hardened  hearts.  The  wounds  of  the  Great  Surgeon 
and  Physician  probe  deeper  and  deeper.  Our  cries  break 
forth  more  and  more  sharply.  The  sense  of  our  awful 
crimes  arid  our  just  punishment  grows  and  grows  in  our 
affrighted  souls.  We  almost  begin  to  confess  our  sins. 
We  have  not  yet  done  it.  This  Proclamation  comes  the 
nearest  to  it.  Yet  this  fails  to  mention  it.  We  bow  the 
head,  but  not  yet  the  knee.  We  pour  forth  prayers,  but 
no  confessions,  especially  no  tears.  The  nation  has  never 
yet  broken  forth  in  the  penitential  cries  of  David,  when 
he  had  been  guilty  of  a  far  less  sin.  We  have  been  guilty 
of  the  enslavement  and  murder  of  multitudes  of  Uriahs.  We 
have  been  guilty  of  the  ruin  of  millions  of  Bathshebas.  We 
have  sold  from  them  the  children  they  have  been  compelled 
to  bear,  reducing  both  the  innocent  victims  of  our  shame 
and  their  innocent  offspring  to  more  horrid  bondage.  Again 
and  again  did  God  send  His  Nathans  to  tell  us  our  sins. 
Again  and  again,  so  far  from  listening  to  His  prophets,  and 
prostrating  ourselves  before  Him,  have  we  stoned  those  He 
sent  unto  us,  and,  sitting  in  our  palaces  of  power  and  pride, 
have  despised  God  and  feared  not  man.  We  have  never 
acknowledged  the  greatness  of  our  sin.  We  have  never 
cried,  "Against  Thee,  THEE  only,  have  we  sinned,  and  done 
this  evil  in  THY  sight.  Have  mercy  on  us,  according  to  Thy 
loving  kindness  :  according  to  the  multitude  of  Thy  tender 
mercies  blot  out  our  transgressions.  Deliver  us  from  blood- 
guiltiness,  0  God." 

Instead  thereof,  how  carefully  we  have  refrained  from  any 
confession  of  our  sin  !  Not  yet  in  a  single  Executive  sum- 
mons to  penitence  is  there  a  direct  reference  to  our  national 
transgression.  In  the  last  it  is  glanced  at  only  covertly  and 
by  indirection.  The  first  cry  burst  from  the  lips  of  the  re- 
tiring President,  by  whose  connivance  the  crime  of  national 


424  THE   CRISIS  HOUR. 

destruction  became  organized  and  outbreaking.  He  dreamed 
not  that  God  was  to  punish  us  because  of  our  submission  to 
the  devil  of  slavery.  He  desired  Union,  but  hated  Aboli- 
tionism, and  asked  this  people  to  entreat  God  to  defeat  the 
last  and  preserve  the  first,  insulting  Him  by  petitions  against 
His  most  clear  desire  and  purpose.  Those  that  our  later 
and  better  leader  has  issued,  if  less  hostile  to  God,  have  not 
been  more  penitential  or  more  honest  in  their  confessions. 
Not  one  has  mentioned  the  sin  that  has  ruled  us.  Not 
one  has  asked  this  people  to  pray  for  its  extirpation,  nor 
for  the  uprooting  of  its  baleful  cause- — our  hatred  of  our 
brother  for  certain  distinctions  made  by  God  Himself.  The 
last  comes  nearest  to  the  demands  of  God,  and  is,  therefore, 
the  most  hopeful  of  all.  It  contains  these  lines,  in  the  con- 
gressional resolution  which  the  President  has  made  the  basis 
of  his  appeal  :  "To  implore  Him,  as  the  Supreme  Ruler  of 
the  nations,  not  to  destroy  us  as  a  people,  nor  suffer  us  to  be 
destroyed  by  the  hostility  or  connivance  of  other  nations, 
or  by  obstinate  adhesion  to  our  own  counsels,  which  may  be 
in  conflict  with  His  eternal  purposes  ;  to  implore  Him  to 
enlighten  the  mind  of  the  nation  to  know  and  do  His  will ; 
humbly  believing  that  it  is  in  accordance  with  His  will  that 
our  place  should  be  maintained  as  a  united  people  among 
the  family  of  nations."  Under  such  circumstances  we  come 
together.  With  a  mighty  war  raging  fiercely  ;  with  wasting 
and  destruction  in  all  our  borders  ;  with  the  heavens  brass 
and  the  earth  "blood  ;  with  the  vultures  and  wild  beasts  of 
prey  hastening  from  across  the  seas  to  devour  the  remains 
of  the  Great  Republic  ere  it  is  dead  ;  with  traitors  on  every 
side  and  in  every  haunt ;  with  a  monstrous  debt,  rapidly 
accumulating  ;  with  armies  imperilled  and  almost  exhausted 
in  the  long  and  doubtful  conflict  —  surely  never  had  a  people 
greater  cause  to  cry  mightily  unto  God  to  come  and  save 
them. 

Let  us  sorrowfully  and  prayerfully  consider  our  duties 


THE   CALL  OF  GOD.  425 

and  perils  in  this  dark  hour.  Dark  as  it  is,  God  can  make 
it  light  —  God  only.  Let  us  implore  His  guidance,  and, 
hardest  of  all,  do  His  will,  — 

"  Hang  on  His  arm  alone 

With  self-distrusting  care, 
And  deeply  in  the  spirit  groan 
The  never-ceasing  prayer." 

The  cause  has  a  bright  face,  if  we  have  the  humility  neces- 
sary to  behold  it. 

Consider,  1.  Our  perils.  2.  Our  duties.  3.  Our  encour- 
agements. 

Our  words  may  be  familiar,  even  to  the  breeding  of  dis- 
gust. But  that  should  not  prevent  their  solemn  considera- 
tion. Novelties  are  unseemly  in  the  house  of  mourning. 
And  such  is  this  house  to-day.  Novelties  are  not  needed 
in  the  front  of  the  army.  Earnest,  courageous,  steadfast 
discharge  of  most  familiar  duties  alone  deserves  the  victory. 
So  with  us.  It  is  not  flights  of  fancy  that  you  need,  if  you 
crave  them ;  not  subtilties  of  casuistry,  not  windings  of 
metaphysics,  not  poetry,  nor  rhetoric,  nor  oratory  ;  these 
are  as  much  out  of  place  as  they  would  be  in  a  fire  engineer 
seeking  the  extinction  of  a  furious  conflagration  ;  as  they 
would  be  in  a  captain  striving  to  get  his  ship,  freighted  with 
a  precious  cargo  of  humanity,  from  the  rocks  against  which 
she  is  dashing.  How  hollow  and  heartless  would  seem  fine 
phrases  and  postures  from  such  a  man  in  such  an  hour  ! 
Much  more  now  should  we  feel  that  our  sole  business  is  to 
hear  and  do  the  will  of  God.  Hear  with  trembling,  do  with 
zeal ;  hear  with  contrition,  do  with  hope. 

Gather  about  His  oracle.  Stand  upon  His  tripod.  Let 
His  afflatus  breathe  its  divine  breath  into  our  weak  and 
earthly  natures,  and  lift  them  up  to  the  stature  and  the 
manners  of  the  sky. 

I.  First,  then.  What  are  our  perils,  or  why  may  we  fail  ? 
"Fail!"  you  say:  "impossible:"  the  very  word  is  treason- 


426  THE   CRISIS  HOUR. 

able.  Nay,  that  depends  on  the  spirit  with  which  it  is 
uttered.  Isaiah  was  no  traitor  because  he  warned  Israel 
that  unless  they  repented  they  should  perish.  Nor  Jere- 
miah, nor  Amos,  nor -John  the  Baptist,  nor  Jesus  Christ. 
The  traitor  is  he  who  wishes  or  seeks  the  ruin  of  his  land 
in  the  interests  of  iniquity.  Not  so  the  patriot.  He  warns 
that  he  may  save.  So,  by  divine  direction,  scattered  through 
His  word,  by  the  authority  to  me  committed,  I  must  declare 
to  this  people  the  possibility  of  failure.  Our  efforts  so 
marvelous  and  so  mighty,  our  expenses  so  great,  our  sacri- 
fice of  life  so  costly,  our  zeal  so  fiery,  may  avail  naught. 
The  Ship  of  State  may  go  down  among  the  breakers,  among 
which  she  has  so  long  been  rolling.  Why  ?  Why  may  we 
be  blotted  out  of  the  family  of  nations  ?  Because  of  our  un- 
faithfulness to  the  divine  idea  upon  which  this  nation  alone 
can  live.  Our  perils  are  not  from  our  foes,  but  from  our  God. 
Is  there  evil  in  the  city,  and  the  Lord  hath  not  done  it?  Did 
He  not  tell  His  chosen  people  in  the  solemn  threatening  of 
Moses  that,  if  they  kept  not  His  commandments,  He  would 
blot  them  out  of  the  earth  ?  And  has  He  not  long  since  fulfilled 
that  threat  against  five  sixths  of  the  nation,  including  the  very 
tribe  to  which  Moses  belonged  ?  It  was  He  that  brought 
the  armies  of  the  heathen  to  their  gates.  It  was  He  that 
drove  them  into  captivity,  and  made  them  servants  of  their 
enemies.  It  was  He  that  abolished  Israel  from  among  the 
nations  of  men.  Thus  does  He  now  "speak  unto  us  in  His 
wrath,  and  vex  us  in  His  sore  displeasure."  Our  perils  are 
not  from  Lee  and  Davis,  nor  from  Napoleon  and  England, 
not  even  from  Vallandigham  and  "the  Courier,"  but  from 
God.  These  are  but  the  instruments  wherewith  He  executes 
His  punishments. 

We  may  fail,  for  two  reasons.  1.  Because  we  are  so 
false  to  Christ  as  a  people.  2.  Because  we  are  so  false  to 
the  lower  professions  we  boastingly  avow.  When  one  stops 
to  consider  how  glaring,  how  intense,  how  universal  is  the 


THE   CALL  OF   GOD.  427 

impiety  of  this  nation,  he  may  well  tremble  for  its  existence. 
In  this  city  of  the  Puritans,  hardly  a  thousand  young-  men 
avow  themselves  the  servants  of  the  Most  High  God.  Hardly 
ten  thousand,  young  and  old,  are  active  members  of  Chris- 
tian churches.  Where  you  meet  one  God-fearing,  God-praying 
youth,  you  will  meet  ten  who  drink  and  swear,  and  are  lovers 
of  themselves  and  of  sinful  pleasures  rather  than  of  God. 
The  same  proportion  exists  throughout  the  country.  Not 
four  millions  of  the  twenty-four  in  the  Free  States  profess 
religion  —  not  one  million  of  its  twelve  millions  of  males  — 
not  one  quarter  of  a  million  of  its  four  millions  of  young 
men  between  sixteen  and  thirty.  Not  one  in  ten,  the  whole 
land  through,  are  voluntary  servants  of  the  Most  High,  — 
hardly  one  in  twenty.  With  the  female  portion  of  society 
the  ratio  is  less  horrible,  yet  it  is  sufficiently  fearful.  The 
vast  majority  of  them,  who  in  other  lands  are  almost  en- 
tirely devoted  to  the  Church,  are  utterly  indifferent,  and 
usually  hostile  to  the  claims  of  the  Gospel.  We  are  a 
prayerless  nation.  We  lament  the  wickedness  of  Europe, 
the  desecration  of  her  Sabbaths.  But  we  forget  that 
their  worst  Sabbath-breakers  attend  service  at  least  once  in 
the  day  —  that  the  church  is  crowded,  if  also  the  theater. 
We,  with  a  more  baleful  consistency,  seeing  that  the  two 
are  incompatible,  abandon  the  Church  entirely,  and  throng 
the  haunts  of  pleasure  and  of  sin. 

Should  we  not  tremble  for  our  country  when  we  think  of 
this  sin  ?  Why  should  God  strive  to  preserve  a  nation  of 
idolaters,  idolaters  of  the  vilest  kind,  worshipers  of  self  and 
sin  ?  What  reason  has  He  for  covering  this  continent  with 
a  deluge  of  Sabbath-breaking,  worldliness,  infidelity,  and 
crime  ?  The  righteous  few  He  can  save,  or  transfer  to 
heaven.  Let  the  Christless  many  perish  in  their  sins. 

2.  But  this  peril  is  increased,  if  we  consider  how  false 
we  are  even  to  the  pretensions  we  make.  As  a  people 
we  avow  our  independence  of  Christ.  We  never  take  His 


428  THE   CRISIS  HOUR. 

name  upon  our  official  lips.  We  never  recognize  Him  as 
our  Sovereign,  nor  His  Gospel  as  our  law  of  life.  But  we 
make  great  professions,  nevertheless.  No  people  were  ever 
more  boastful  ;  not  the  English,  not  the  French,  not  the 
German,  all  very  boastful  nations,  ever  bragging  of  their 
prowess,  their  talents,  their  taste.  Yet  none  of  these  pro- 
claim their  principles  as  their  glory.  None  of  them  say, 
"  I  am  the  believer  in  the  equal  rights  of  every  man."  An 
almost  obliterated  inscription  upon  the  arch  of  St.  Martin, 
in  the  Boulevards  of  Paris,  has  the  faded  words,  "  Liberte, 
Egalite",  Fraternite*  ;  "  but  they  do  not  blaze,  by  decrees  of 
her  emperor,  from  her  present  Arcs  de  Triomphe,  her  halls, 
her  flags,  her  journals.  They  are  not  on  the  lips  of  her  rulers. 
No  word  has  been  more  upon  our  lips  these  last  three  years 
than  Democracy,  —  not  the  false,  but  the  true.  We  are  the 
representatives  of  its  claims  among  men.  We  are  its  armed 
defenders.  In  our  victory  it  lives  ;  in  our  failure  it  dies. 
We  have  stirred  our  assemblies  with  harangues  upon  its 
nationalities.  We  have  fired  our  soldiers  with  appeals  for 
its  preservation.  We  have  filled  our  press,  our  pulpit,  our 
people,  with  its  inspirations.  Yet  we  still  hideously  disre- 
gard its  most  plain  and  palpable  injunctions.  We  compel 
one  fifth  of  our  people  to  live  by  themselves,  to  fight  by 
themselves,  to  marry  among  themselves,  and  even  to  worship 
by  themselves.  They  are  more  apart  than  the  lepers  of 
Jerusalem.  Here  and  there  we  grant  them  the  ballot-box  ; 
here  and  there  the  privileges  of  schools.  But  never  do  we 
ignore  the  color  of  their  face  or  the  crinkle  of  their  hair. 
Never  do  we  say,  "  Away  with  the  most  violent  foe  to  our 
organic  idea  !  All  are  one  in  Christ  Jesus."  As  a  nation, 
we  burn  with  contempt.  We  call  them  to  our  armies,  but 
it  is  to  hold  inferior  places.  We  give  them  no  commissions, 
nor  commands.  We  separate  them  into  regiments  by  them- 
selves. We  give  them  posts  of  honor  and  of  danger,  but 
still  by  themselves.  Why  should  we  put  them  thus  apart 


THE  CALL  OF  GOD.  429 

from  their  brethren  ?  Why  cling  to  our  prejudice  more 
violently  than  an  Englishman  to  his  ?  A  murder  is  commit- 
ted there  in  a  first-class  carriage.  The  public  is  affrighted. 
How  shall  its  repetition  be  prevented  ?  A  dozen  devices 
are  suggested,  but  the  simplest  device  of  them  all  —  the  in- 
troduction of  the  American  rail-car  —  nobody  dares  to  pro- 
pose. Why?  This  compels  too  great  familiarity.  "We 
must  be  by  ourselves,"  says  wealth  and  blood,  "even  if  mur- 
derers buy  seats  in  our  carriage  and  kill  us,  because  of  this 
excess  of  gentility.  So  we  say  to  our  African  blooded 
people,  "Keep  by  yourselves,  even  if  such  separation  causes 
our  national  destruction." 

What  an  answer  to  our  loud-mouthed  professions  of 
equality  and  fraternity !  What  a  mockery  of  our  lives 
against  our  lips  !  It  would  be  ludicrous  were  it  not  for  its 
awful  results.  The  Jews,  who  proclaimed  themselves  the 
depositary  of  God's  will,  and  then  slew  His  own  Son,  were 
not  greater  hypocrites  than  is  America  to-day ;  nay,  they 
were  not  so  great,  for  their  light  and  knowledge  was  far  less 
than  ours.  They  did  not  know  that  He  was  truly  the  Son 
of  God  ;  we  do  know  that  these  are  truly  our  brethren.  Our 
Declaration  is  read  every  Fourth  of  July,  and  broken  every 
other  day  of  the  year,  and  that  also.  Our  friends  and  neigh- 
bors, who  have  dwelt  in  this  land  as  long  as  we,  nine  tenths 
of  whom  have  English  blood  in  their  veins,  and  one  half  of 
whom  have  more  of  that  blood  than  of  their  original  African, 
all  of  whom,  if  entirely  and  directly  from  the  lowest  tribe 
of  Africa,  are  included  in  our  national  creed, — these  fellow- 
citizens  and  fellow-men,  born  of  our  blood  and  on  our  soil, 
are  shut-out  of  the  legitimate  workings  of  that  creed.  They 
are  disfranchised  in  thirty  States  of  this  Union.  They  are 
despised  in  them  all.  Why  should  we  talk  of  victory  ? 
Why  dream  of  it  ?  What  claim  have  we  to  it  ?  Is  the 
Church  erect  and  godlike  in  this  matter  ?  Is  any  Church  ? 
Is  ours  ?  We  had  many  jubilations  in  our  quadrennial 


430  THE   CRISIS  HOUR. 

council,  because  we  concluded  no  longer  to  harbor  a  certain 
class  of  sinners,  when  there  were  no  more  of  these  sinners 
to  be  harbored.  But  when  the  question  was  asked  whether 
there  was  any  objection  to  admitting  a  colored  brother  to 
our  Conferences,  it  was  answered  gravely  by  the  committee 
to  whom  it  was  referred,  and  their  report  accepted  by  the 
Conference,  that  "there  was  no  legal  objection" — as  if  there 
were  moral ;  thus  elevating  their  prejudices  into  the  dignity 
of  divine  law.  Then  they  proceed  to  organize  colored  Con- 
ferences, but  give  them  no  right  of  representation  in  the 
General  Conference.  Church  and  society  join  hand  in  hand 
in  this  sin,  and  God  is  not  letting  them  go  unpunished.  So- 
ciety stamps  upon  them,  crushes  God's  image  and  Christ's 
brethren,  and  their  own,  into  contemptuous  dust.  What 
Church  would  imitate  the  example  of  the  first  Gentile  Church 
—  that  of  Antioch  ?  Simeon,  called  Niger,  put  his  ordaining 
hands  on  Barnabas  and  Paul.  Where  is  the  Church  com- 
p*osed  chiefly  of  white  members,  where  a  black  man  is  one 
of  its  officers,  and  ordains  its  ministers  ?  even  such  min- 
isters as  an  apostle,  and  such  an  apostle  as  Paul. 

The  like  treatment  the  nation,  as  a  whole,  gives  to  its  chil- 
dren, its  poor,  its  unfortunates.  Its  orphans  cannot  have  the 
same  asylum  as  those  of  its  white  neighbors,  though  both 
may  come  from  one  house,  nor  can  its  children  attend  the 
same  school.  Everywhere,  save  in  a  few  of  the  New  Eng- 
land States,  does  this  curse  reign.  Is  it  any  wonder  that 
we  are  in  peril  ?  We  are  wrestling  with  the  Almighty,  not 
for  a  blessing,  but  a  cursing.  We  annul  His  laws,  despise 
His  children  ;  and  can  we  hope  for  prosperity  ? 

II.  But  perils  nerve  true  men  to  their  duty.  An  enemy 
at  our  gates  makes  the  coward  pale,  makes  a  hero  cool  and 
cairn.  God,  who  sends  the  dangers  because  of  our  sins, 
sends  salvation,  if  we  repent  and  forsake  those  sins.  We 
may  see  our  duty  in  the  dreary  horror  of  our  danger.  As 
the  brave  commander  sees  his  when  his  vessel  shivers  in 


THE   CALL  OF  GOD.  431 

the  roaring  breakers,  as  the  competent  officer  discerns  and 
discharges  his  in  the  surprise  and  shock  of  battle,  so  should 
we.  We  who  profess  to  be  Christians,  let  us  seek  and  follow 
the  way  of  escape.  "Gird  up  thy  loins  as  a  man,"  is  God's 
reply  to  us,  when  we  faint,  and  whine,  and  beg,  as  we  are  re- 
buked of  Him.  When  Joshua  lay  on  his  face,  and  asked  God 
if  He  was  going  to  destroy  the  nation  which  He  had  redeemed 
with  such  great  wonders,  the  Lord  answers  with  appropriate 
scorn,  "  Get  thee  up.  Why  liest  thou  thus  upon  thy  face? 
Israel  hath  sinned,  and  they  have  also  transgressed  My  cov- 
enant which  I  commanded  them,  for  they  have  even  taken 
of  the  accursed  thing,  and  have  also  stolen  and  dissembled 
also."  How  have  we  dissembled  !  "  Therefore  they  could 
not  stand  before  their  enemies,  but  turned  their  backs  before 
their  enemies,  because  they  were  accursed ;  neither  will  I 
be  with  you  any  more,  except  ye  destroy  the  accursed  from 
among  you."  Joshua  instantly  leaps  up,  and  sturdily  follows 
the  will  of  God ;  and  lo,  ere  the  week  is  out,  so  far  from  being 
driven  down  into  the  valley  of  the  Jordan,  back  upon  his 
camps  and  his  families,  he  is  chasing  his  enemies  down  the 
opposite  hill-side,  across  the  plains  of  the  Mediterranean,  and 
halting  sun  and  moon  in  the  heavens  till  he  completes  the 
work  of  subjugation.  Had  this  nation  been  as  earnest  in 
its  fastings  and  prayers,  had  its  President  and  Cabinet, 
Generals  and  Congress,  been  as  sincere  in  their  humiliations, 
they  would  years  ago  have  chased  their  enemies  into  the 
Gulf,  and  peace  and  liberty  have  long  possessed  the  land. 
But  they  are  not  sincere.  We  are  not  honest  before  God. 
Our  honest  President  here  fails  in  honesty.  He  was  honest 
in  seeking  the  expatriation  of  this  portion  of  his  people,  he 
is  not  in  seeking  their  elevation.  He  still  refuses  to  pay 
two  Massachusetts  regiments  the  same  as  the  rest  are  paid. 
He  refuses  lieutenancies  to  those  who,  were  they  white  and 
foreigners,  would  have  been  made  major  generals  for  their 
skill  and  valor. 


432  THE   CRISIS   HOUR. 

What  must  we  do  ? 

1.  Pray  for  the  conversion  of  this  people.      The  Holy 
Spirit  must  renew  us  after  the  image  and  power  of  God,  or 
we  perish.     This  nation  must  be  holy  or  unholy,  Christian 
or  infidel.     It  must  be  converted.     The  Church  should  rest 
not,  day  nor  night,  praying  and  laboring  for  its  salvation. 

2.  The  nation  must  conform  to  its  lower  but  hardly  less 
vital  principle  of  democracy.    There  is  no  alternative  betwixt 
a  perfect  democracy  and  a  monarchy.     Europe  has  proved 
this  again  and  again.     She  attempted  a  mixed  democracy 
in  the  Italian  cities,  in  Venice,  Florence,  and  Ferrara.     They 
became  soon  dukedoms,  and  then  appendages  of  a  kingdom. 
She  tried  it  in  Holland,  but  the  Princes  of  Orange  despoiled 
their  people  of  liberty  in  conferring  upon  them  nationality. 
She  tried  it  in  Flanders,  but  Ghent  and  Bruges  gave  alle- 
giance to  a  ruling  class,  and  lost  their  rights  and  liberties 
by  their  error.     France  tried  it,  but  developing  a  military 
leader  to  preserve  her  liberties  against  leagued  tyrants,  that 
leader  robbed  those  he  assumed  to  protect.     So  will  it  be 
here,  if  we  persist  in  declaring  our  rights  are  based  on  color. 
If  we,  who  are  of  the  aristocratic  blood,  declare  that  any 
tinge  of  Africa  expels   its  possessor  from  the   heritage  of 
equality,  we  shall  assuredly  resolve  ourselves  into  a  mon- 
archy.    We  shall  become  as  Greece,  Rome,  Venice,  and  Hol- 
land.    We  shall  lose  all  our  rights  as  equals.     The  dominant 
class  will  be  reclassed,  as  in  all  aristocratic  countries,  and 
the   stratifications  of  our  society  will  be  solidified  and  per- 
manent.    As  the  Irish,  who  hate  the  Negro,  are  almost  as 
completely  excluded  as  their  next  lower  neighbor  from  the 
superior  rank  of  Americans,  so  shall  we  find  others  above 
us,  and  on  the  top  of  all  some  selected  families,  with  ducal, 
royal,  or  imperial  pride  and  power. 

If  we  would  escape  this  calamity,  we  must  abolish  our 
prejudices.  We  must  be  true  to  our  principles.  Will  we 
be  ?  God  waits  for  our  answer.  To-day,  if  ye  will  hear 


THE   CALL  OF  GOD.  433 

His  voice,  harden  not  your  hearts.  Our  fathers  hardened 
theirs,  and  He  swore  in  His  wrath  that  we  should  not  enter 
the  desired  rest.  Will  we  persist  in  our  sin  ?  If  we  scoff 
at  His  commands,  if  we  nickname  His  principles,  as  His 
people  and  His  work  have  alwaj's  been  nicknamed  by  a 
mocking  world,  when  they  started  upon  their  mission,  then 
He  will  laugh  at  our  calamity  and  mock  when  our  fear 
cometh,  when  our  fear  cometh  as  desolation,  and  our  de- 
struction cometh  as  a  whirlwind,  when  distress  and  anguish 
cometh  upon  us.  Calamity  and  fear,  distress  and  anguish, 
are  all  upon  us.  Beware  lest  you  hear  the  scorning  voice 
of  a  scorned  God  sounding  through  terrified  souls,  "Where 
now  is  thy  confidence,  thy  strength,  thy  glory  ?  Woe  to 
rebellious  children,  who  seek  counsel,  but  not  of  Me.  The 
Lord  doth  have  them  in  derision."  Let  us  hasten  to  expel 
this  kind  that  go  not  forth  without  prayer  and  fasting. 

3.  A  third  duty,  not  less  imperative,  is  to  cordially  sup- 
port, while  encouraging,  the  Church  and  the  nation.  We 
are  not  of  that  class  who  abandon  those  they  seek  to  con- 
vert. We  do  not  hate  the  Church  because  we  condemn  her 
short-comings.  We  do  not  traitorously  oppose  the  govern- 
ment we  hope  to  save.  With  alt  its  faults  the  American 
Church  and  the  American  nation  are,  to-day,  the  advance 
guard  of  the  human  race.  They  may  be  chastised,  they 
maybe  slain,  because  of  their  sins.  That  work  belongs  not 
to  their  children,  but  to  their  Creator.  He  can  create  and 
He  destroy.  It  is  ours  to  correct,  to  instruct,  to  aid  by  our 
prayers,  our  utterances,  our  sacrifices.  For  this  work  we 
may  be  required  to  lay  down  our  lives.  The  period  of  vol- 
unteering for  this  service  is  past,  that  of  drafting  is  corning. 
We  may  in  honorable  ways  maintain  our  government  without 
the  surrender  of  our  lives.  We  may  loan  the  government 
our  moneys  ;  we  may  restrict  our  expenses  ;  we  may  give 
liberally  for  the  relief  of  our  sick  and  wounded  soldiers,  and 
for  the  desolated  families  of  the  fallen  heroes ;  we  may  thus, 
28 


434  THE   CRISIS  HOUR. 

in  many  ways,  illustrate  our  patriotism.  But  we  may  be 
required  to  go  yet  further  in  our  zeal  and  our  service.  The 
call  of  the  nation  may  summon  us  to  its  service.  Substi- 
tutes may  not  be  secured,  and  if  secured  will  not  always 
answer  the  summons  to  duty.  The  cause  of  liberty  and 
humanity  may  demand  our  life.  Let  us  not  refuse  the  gift. 
It  was  right  and  proper  for  the  persecuted  Christian  to  try 
to  escape  from  his  persecutors  ;  but  if  caught,  if  summoned 
to  trial,  then  he  must  manfully  face  his  fate.  Paul  could 
not  say,  "I  stand  by  my  vows,  but  I  will  hire  a  trained  glad- 
iator to  fight  the  lions  in  my  place."  These  were  duties  that 
could  not  be  transferred.  So  now  it  may  come  to  us.  Let  us 
meet  it  as  the  sons  of  our  fathers,  as  the  brothers  of  those 
who  are  now  in  battle  array,  or  who  have  fallen  for  our  sal- 
vation. You,  too,  may  yet  be  called  to  give  the  parting  kiss 
and  start  for  the  perilous  field.  Humanity  hangs  in  the  haz- 
ardous balance.  Let  its  principles  not  fail  for  lack  of  your 
support.  Pray,  speak,  fight  for  Christ  and  your  fellow-man. 

III.  What  are  our  encouragements  ?  Many  say,  "To  what 
purpose  is  this  waste  of  life  and  treasure  ?  "  We  have  seen  it 
is  for  purposes  of  punishment ;  we  shall  also  see  that  it  is  for 
purposes  of  mercy.  God  has  chastened  us  very  sore,  yet 
far  less  than  our  desert.  He  has  compelled  North  and  South, 
alike  guilty,  if  not  equally,  to  scourge  each  other  with  bloody 
rods.  He  has  arrayed  millions  against  millions,  and  made 
the  whole  land  rock  with  His  thunders.  In  the  midst  of 
our  sufferings,  He  has  wrought  salvation  for  His  sufferers. 

1.  Slavery  is  practically  dead.  Whichever  way  this  war 
terminates,  this  iniquity  ceases.  If  the  South  maintain 
their  independence,  without  foreign  aid  they  can  keep  no 
slaves  in  their  borders.  The  nations  that  desire  their  success 
will  scorn  their  alliance  with  that  barbarism  alive.  They 
will,  undoubtedly,  adopt  an  oligarchic  system  of  govern- 
ment, in  which  white  and  black  will  hold  inferior,  servile 
perhaps,  but  not  slavish  positions.  Those  awful  sights,  so 


THE   CALL  OF  GOD.  435 

frequent  and  familiar  in  this  land  but  four  years  since,  are 
gone  forever.  The  auction-block,  the  separated  families,  the 
plied  lash,  the  illimitable  concubinage,  the  enforced  igno- 
rance and  bestiality,  the  chained  coffles  traversing  the  States, 
the  prison-house,  the  whipping-post,  the  hell  upon  hell  of 
torture,  shame,  and  sorrow,  the  land  of  darkness  and  the 
shadow  of  death,  we  can  never  see  again.  Many  talk  pertly 
of  this,  and  say,  "  Five  dollars  expended  in  cowhides  will 
restore  the  old  system."  Others  as  pertly  say,  "  An 
amendment  of  the  Constitution  alone  will  save  us  from  the 
returning  flood.  Hasten  to  erect  this  sea-wall  while  the 
tide  is  out."  My  friends,  the  Constitution  did  not  kill  and 
cannot  kill  slavery.  It  died  BY  THE  VISITATION  OF  GOD.  It 
can  never  come  to  life  again.  As  easy  is  it  to  revive  glad- 
iatorial shows  in  Eome,  or  Druidic  burnings  of  children  in 
England,  or  the  wanton  worship  of  Venus  at  Corinth,  or 
cannibalism  at  Otaheite.  The  slaveholder  himself  is  cured 
of  slavery.  Jefferson  Davis  declares  they  are  not  fight- 
ing for  slavery,  but  for  independence.  Their  only  cry  for 
thirty  years,  increasing  in  the  culmination  of  the  outbreak, 
was,  "We  fight  for  slavery,  not  independence."  They  know 
they  cannot  restore  that  system.  With  no  fugitive  slave 
law,  with  a  North  intensely  hostile  to  slavery,  with  the 
world  hating  it,  they  must  abandon  their  darling  demon. 
It  has  gone  down,  down  to  its  wicked  hell,  down  beyond 
all  resurrection.  Enough  has  been  accomplished  for  all  the 
dreadful  cost.  With  a  great,  but  not  too  great  a  price,  have 
we  won  this  freedom.  An  institution  many  believed  would 
endure  for  ages,  lies  prone  for  many  a  league.  Millions  of 
its  victims,  escaped  from  its  devouring  jaws,  are  exulting 
to-day  in  irreversible  freedom.  State  after  State  is  wheel- 
ing into  the  line  of  liberty.  Praise  God  from  Whom  these 
blessings,  so  great,  so  marvelous,  have  flowed. 

2.  Hardly  second  has  been  the  great  uplift  of  the  despised 
race.     Much  yet  remains  to  be  done,  but  much  has  been 


436  THE   CRISIS   HOUR. 

achieved.  They  walk  our  streets  with  erecter  mien  than 
ever  they  wore  before.  The  scornful  white  begins  to  dis- 
cern comeliness  in  their  countenances,  and  grace  in  their 
steps.  The  lighter  shades,  Mrs.  Kemble  Butler  can  assert, 
are  improvements  on  the  mere  white  and  red  of  our  com- 
plexions, and  many  respond,  "Amen."  The  lovely  children 
of  slavery  are  smothered  in  the  ardent  embraces  of  fastidious 
and  lately  loathing  dames  and  damsels.  They  are  warmly 
welcomed  to  our  pulpits.  They  are  made  the  advance  guard 
in  our  most  desperate  assaults.  They  will  mount  the  ram- 
parts of  Richmond,  and  aid  in  dictating  terms  of  peace  to 
their  once  arrogant  masters. 

That  the  work  is  not  accomplished  should  not  make  us 
repine.  If  Grant  fails  to  take  Richmond,  and  Sherman 
Atlanta,  the  campaign  has  not  failed.  We  have  marched 
to  the  heart  of  the  Confederacy.  We  have  kept  their  armies 
pent  up  in  their  capitals,  with  but  brief  and  temporary  es- 
capades therefrom.  We  have  possessed  ourselves  of  two 
thirds  of  their  territory  east  of  the  Mississippi,  and  one  half 
of  that  beyond.  We  have  not  yet  drained  our  first  quota 
of  fighting  men,  between  twenty  years  and  forty-five.  The 
large  class  below  and  above  those  ages  are  still  unsum- 
moned.  If  Grant  is  delayed  before  Richmond,  it  is  not  for 
our  destruction,  but  purification.  The  new  draft  of  five 
hundred  thousand  men  must  embrace  two  hundred  thousand 
blacks.  Ere  another  year,  if  the  war  lasts  that  long,  they 
will  be  Colonels  and  Brigadier  Generals  in  the  United  States 
army.  The  favorite  nickname  of  the  negro  and  the  nation, 
"  Sambo  "  and  "  Samuel,"  is  of  the  same  origin.  Is  not 
this  prophetic  of  their  future  identity  ?  Our  victories  are 
encouraging;  so  are  our  defeats.  We  have  moved  forward 
as  fast  as  we  deserved  to  move.  There  is  much  to  be  done 
before  the  war  for  democracy  can  be  closed  by  complete 
victory  of  democracy.  Desdemona  loved  Othello  because 
he  had  saved  her  country  from  destruction  ;  so  must  we  his 
American  kindred. 


THE   CALL  OF   GOD.  437 

When  Jules  Girard,  the  lion-killer  of  Africa,  had  slain  one 
of  these  devourers  of  the  people,  he  says,  "  Even  the  women 
crowded  around  the  man  with  thanks  and  praises,  who  a 
month  before  would  have  fled  from  him  as  from  a  noxious 
beast,  whose  very  appearance  is  repulsive.  Now  they 
talked,  and  wondered,  and  chatted,  with  a  mixture  of  famil- 
iarity and  respect  that  they  would  not  have  shown  even  to 
one  of  their  own  countrymen."  So,  when  this  rebellion, 
the  awful  master  of  our  land  and  lives,  shall  have  been  slain 
by  the  very  hands  which  it  was  started  to  enslave,  we  shall 
fall  upon  our  knees  in  gratitude  to  our  deliverer.  And  as  deliv- 
erers are  always  beautiful  to  those  they  save,  so  will  these  who 
were  to  us  before  like  the  French  soldier  to  the  Arab  wo- 
men, "  a  noxious  beast,  whose  very  appearance  is  repulsive," 
like  him  become  objects  of  respect  and  admiration,  of  regard 
and  love.  We  shall  see  in  them  the  features  of  a  common 
parent.  Adam  and  Eve  will  beam  from  their  countenances. 
We  shall  welcome  them  as  brothers  and  sisters,  and  the 
long  nightmare  of  our  fears  and  hates  will  break  up,  while 
the  flood  of  bliss  in  us,  and  the  sunshine  of  peace  streaming 
upon  the  land,  will  make  us  glad  with  exceeding  great  joy. 

3.  The  last  encouragement  we  should  do  wrong  to  omit 
is  that  which  comes  to  us  from  foreign  lands.  Not  the 
decrees  of  rnonarchs,  not  the  scowls  of  .titled  leaders  and 
their  toady  flunkies,  but  the  honest,  earnest,  unanimous, 
passionate  regard  of  the  people.  There  was  more  joy  in 
Manchester  than  in  Boston  when  the  Kearsarge  sunk  the 
Alabama  ;  as  much  delight  in  Paris  as  in  New  York.  The 
people  are  with  us.  It  is  their  war.  All  people  are  here 
fighting  their  masters.  The  "mudsill "  is  contending  with  the 
Corinthian  capital;  "the  greasy  mechanic "  with  the  scented 
lordling.  The  revolutions  of  the  last  century  paved  the 
way  for  the  progress  of  this.  If -we  win,  Europe  is  theirs. 
The  United  States  of  Europe  will  wheel  into  line  with  us, 
perchance  ere  the  century  shall  close,  and  kings,  nobles,  and 


438  THE   CRISIS   HOUE. 

standing  armies,  palaces,  pride,  and  aggrandizement  of  lands 
and  houses,  will  be  scattered  like  Charlemagne's  bones,  so 
that  none  shall  gather  them.  The  movements  in  England 
against  primogeniture  and  for  manhood  suffrage  *  will  triumph 
soon  after  we  shall  subdue  the  rebellion,  and  then  the  family 
of  the  Conqueror  will  bid  a  long  farewell  to  all  its  greatness. 
There  is  no  other  possible  solution  for  that  ever-recurring 
problem,  if  we  win.  And  we  shall  win. 

"  This  fine  old  world  of  ours  is  but  a  child 
Yet  in  the  go-cart.     Patience  !     Give  it  time 
To  learn  its  limbs ;  there  is  a  Hand  that  guides." 

Great  as  is  our  impiety,  our  insolent  scorn  of  God  and  His 
children,  our  infidelity,  our  worldliness,  our  crime,  yet  He 
will  spare  us.  He  will  redeem  us.  The  world's  future 
shall  not  be  blotted  out  with  our  destruction.  As  He  spared 
His  rebellious  people  in  the  wilderness,  not  for  their  sake, 
but  for  the  sake  of  the  world,  so  will  He  now  spare  us.  As 
He  punished  that  generation  with  destruction  for  their  un- 
belief, so  He  may  this ;  but  our  children,  growing  up  without 
our  prejudice,  with  more  than  our  patriotism,  shall  preserve 
this  land  for  liberty,  for  fraternity,  for  God  and  His  Christ. 
They  shall  dwell  together,  unmindful  of  color  and  of  origin. 
They  shall  be  one  in  love,  and  in  life.  As  in  heaven,  so  in 
earth,  this  region  of  all  nations,  kindreds,  tribes,  and  tongues 
shall  dwell  together  in  unity  —  Asiatic,  Afric,  European, 
American ;  Chinese,  Negro,  Indian,  and  all ;  one  people,  the 
people  of  God,  with  one  law,  one  liberty,  one  destiny;  the 
founders  of  the  New  World,  wherein  dwelleth  righteousness. 
"  For  a  small  moment  have  I  forsaken  thee,  but  with  great 
mercies  will  I  gather  thee.  In  a  little  wrath  I  hid  My  face 
from  thee  for  a  moment,  but  with  everlasting  kindness  will  I 
have  mercy  on  thee,  saith  the  Lord  thy  Redeemer." 

*  Her  victory  for   suffrage  was   won   in  three  years  after  our  war 
ceased,  that  of  freedom  of  lands  will  soon  follow. 


THE    WORLD    WAR.* 


BEHOLD,  THIS  ONE  is  SET  FOR  THE  FALL  AND  THE  RISING  AGAIN  OF 
MANY."  —  Luke  ii.  34. 

MERICA  proclaimed  war  against  the  thrones  of 
Europe  when  she  declared  her  Declaration.  The 
irrepressible  conflict  began  at  that  moment.  It 
has  continued  ever  since.  It  is  increasing  to-day. 
It  may  come  to  blows  to-morrow.  The  babe  Christ,  as 
Simeon  told  Mary,  was  set  for  the  fall  and  the  rising  again 
of  many  in  Israel,  that  the  thoughts  of  many  hearts  should 
be  revealed.  Herod's  palace  and  Hell's  palace  felt  His 
presence.  Great  disputes,  greater  wrath  raged  in  both. 
The  events  were  noised  abroad  in  hill,  country,  and  valley ; 
from  shepherds  to  Eastern  magi  and  kings.  Not  only  were 
the  events  a  subject  of  discourse  ;  issues  sharp,  violent, 
deadly,  instantly  arose  from  them.  The  massacre  of  the 
babes  and  the  flight  into  Egypt  were  but  the  beginnings  of 
a  warfare  that  has  gone  on,  unceasing  and  without  truce, 
even  to  this  day.  How  many  empires  have  fallen  ;  how 

*  A  sermon  preached  on  the  occasion  of  the  Annual  State  Fast,  in 
Boston,  April  4,  1864. 

(439) 


440  THE   WORLD   WAR. 

many  have  risen  since  that  hour  !  Not  always  were  His 
allies  flying  or  Himself  in  flight.  The  Babe  was  triumphant, 
even  in  seeming  disaster.  Gods,  devils,  and  sinners  were 
alike  controlled  by  Him. 

"  They  feel  from  Judah's  land 
The  dreaded  Infant's  hand ; 
The  rays  of  Bethlehem  blind  their  dusky  e'en ; 
Our  Babe,  to  show  his  Godhead  true, 
Can  in  His  swaddling  bands  control  the  damned  crew." 

So  was  it  with  the  American  nation  in  its  infancy.  When 
born  it  amazed  tyrants.  When  but  a  child  it  confounded 
the  doctors  of  monarchical  political  philosophy,  and  now, 
when  tyrants,  doctors,  and  the  ruthless  mob  of  sycophantic 
priests  and  press  cry  "  Let  it  be  crucified  !  "  they  cry  in 
vain.  Christ  only  once  yielded  His  life  to  His  murderers. 
Death  hath  no  more  dominion  over  Him.  No  more  hath 
it  over  His.  In  His  Church  and  in  His  State,  —  the  body 
whereof  the  Church  is  the  soul,  —  shall  He  go  forward  con- 
quering and  to  conquer. 

The  words  which  announce  my  theme  should  not  affright 
you.  Many  people  are  very  fearful  of  a  war  with  Europe. 
"  Don't  proclaim  the  possibility  of  a  war  with  England.  Have 
not  we  enough  on  our  hands  to-day  ?  "  My  friends,  we  are 
at  war  with  England..  We  have  been  at  war  with  her  for 
almost  a  hundred  years.  We  must  continue  it  till  one  or 
the  other  is  subjugated.  It  is  a  war  of  ideas,  a  war  of 
principles.  Whether  or  not  it  shall  clothe  itself  in  armor 
and  flow  in  blood,  God  knows.  He  ordained  the  conflict,  lie 
will  conduct  it  to  its  divine,  triumphant  issue.  Let  us  on 
this  day  of  national  humiliation  and  prayer  consider  these 
most  vital,  national  questions. 

Man  cannot  escape  his  responsibilities.  Gifts  and  duties 
are  born  together,  by  the  creation  of  God.  We  are  required 
to-day  to  view  those  gifts,  not  in  their  own  blessed  light,  but 


ARISTOCRACY  AND   DEMOCRACY.  441 

in  the  shadow  and  more  serious  glooms  of  their  attendant 
duties.  The  Christian,  when  he  first  feels  the  pulses  of  the 
divine  life  rising  in  his  soul,  fancies  his  life  is  to  be  a  Gau- 
dama  paradise  of  the  perpetual  contemplation  of  his  delight. 
He  soon  finds  that  not  only  must  he  fight  if  he  would  reign, 
but  he  must  fight  if  he  would  live.  So  we  long  fancied 
that  we  were  to  enjoy  the  blessings  of  our  wonderful  sys- 
tem of  Union  and  Liberty  without  disturbance  from  within 
or  without.  We  were  aroused  from  our  luxurious  trance 
by  internal  enemies  rushing  fiercely  upon  us,  disarmed  and 
enervated  in  body  and  soul.  We  leaped  to  our  feet,  and 
looked  hither  and  thither  for  aid  ;  and,  lo,  the  very  faces 
that  smiled  so  blandly  upon  us  an  hour  ago,  how  cold,  how 
scowling  now  !  What  hauteur,  what  undisguised  contempt, 
what  sensitiveness  to  the  remotest  and  most  unintentional 
interference  on  our  part  with  their  pretended  rights  and 
dignities  !  What  hastening  to  cast  loving  side-glances  at 
our  foes  ! 

Did  we  say,  "  France  is  our  old  ally.  Surely  she  will 
sympathize  with  us  ? "  We  were  compelled  to  read,  as  a 
response,  the  imperial  letter,  declaring  our  dissolution  essen- 
tial to  the  safety  of  Europe.  Did  we  say,  "  England,  our 
mother,  our  commercial  ally,  who  boasts  in  her  liberty,  and 
bo'asts  in  her  abolitionism,  she  will  earnestly  espouse  their 
cause  who  represent  this  liberty  and  abolitionism  in  the 
fiercest  struggle  to  which  they  ever  have  or  can  be  sub- 
jected ? "  We  were  surprised  to  behold  her,  in  advance 
of  all  others,  proclaiming  not  merely  the  desirableness,  but 
the  fact  of  our  dissolution,  conceding  our  rebels  belligerent 
rights,  and  aiding  them  with  vessels,  armaments,  men, 
means  of  subsistence,  and  far  from  least,  unceasing  words 
of  compliment  and  encouragement,  through  Parliament,  the 
platform,  and  the  press  ? 

They  were  consistent,  we  not.  They  were  wise  in  worldly 
wisdom,  we  fools.  But  we  have  acquired  wisdom  in  the 


442  THE    WORLD   WAR. 

painful  school  of  experience  —  the  only  school  in  which  it 
can  be  learned.  They  saw  that  an  earth  so  small  as  to 
have  five  World  Conventions  of  its  industry  in  ten  years, 
whose  ocean  channels,  bridged  with  multitudinous  ships, 
would  practically  disappear  when  the  telegraphic  wire 
should  make  both  hemispheres  throb  with  one  pulse ;  whose 
industrial  wares  and  devices  were  simultaneously  sold  in 
India,  Europe,  America,  and  Australia :  such  a  pent  up 
Utica  could  not  endure  two  radically  and  bitterly  hostile 
systems  of  government  in  equal  supremacy.  The  American 
Idea  appeared  among  these  throned  powers  and  pretensions, 
as  the  Nazarene  among  the  gods  of  Greece  and  Rome.  It 
could  allow  their  existence  neither  as  equals  nor  inferiors. 
No  niche  in  the  Pantheon  satisfies  its  claims.  One  or  all 
must  die. 

Their  wisdom  will  be  the  more  clearly  seen,  if  we  notice 
how  vital  are  the  differences  between  the  two  systems  of 
society.  What  is  this  man-child  of  America,  against 
which,  from  its  infancy,  the  kings  of  the  earth  have  in- 
stinctively set  themselves,  and  the  rulers  taken  counsel 
together  ? 

I.  Three  ideas  were  born  into  organized  society  in  the 
birth  of  the  American  nation. 

1.  A  successful  revolution  in  favor  of  human  rights. 
Other  revolutions  have  transpired  in  the  world's  history, 
not  a  few.  This  was  the  first  that  appealed  to  the  world 
in  behalf  of  the  world.  "  A  decent  respect  for  the  opin- 
ions "  of  mankind  is  in  the  inaugural  sentence  of  the  Dec- 
laration. It  is  fittingly  completed  in  the  enunciation  of 
certain  "  inalienable  rights  "  —  not  of  themselves  merely 
or  chiefly  —  but  of  "all  men."  Rev.  Jonas  Clark,  who 
heralded  the  Revolution  by  brave  words,  that  were  half 
battles,  spoken  often  in  the  church  on  Lexington  green,  by 
which  his  flock  was  strengthened  to  begin  the  armed  strife, 
by  brave  deeds  there,  was  permitted  at  the  close  of  the 


AEISTOCKACY  AND  DEMOCRACY.  443 

century  to  write  the  inscription  for  their  monument.  His 
youthful  political  sermons  glow  in  its  first  line  :  "  Sacred 
to  Liberty  and  the  Rights  of  Mankind."  * 

What  previous  people  ever  proclaimed  such  a  doctrine, 
ever  felt  its  inspiration  ?  Their  revolutions  were  local  re- 
actions from  local  oppressions.  The  Cromwellian  revolt 
was  against  the  absolutism  of  Church  and  State.  It  did 
not  affect  the  world,  because  it  did  not  feel  its  oneness  with 
the  oppressed  of  the  world.  Its  religious  character  was 
thus  expansive,  not  its  political.  Hence  every  religious, 
but  no  civil  Protestant,  saw  and  sought  the  Protector's  pro- 
tection. The  Protestant  Waldensians  felt  his  uplifting,  the 
Papal  Irish  his  descending  arm. 

The  Dutch  uprising  was  a  brave  resisting  of  a  foreign 
foe.  They  regarded  themselves  alone,  their  deprivations, 
their  duties.  Hence  they  never  flashed  their  energies  into 
like  suffering  and  seeking  peoples.  They  had  so  died  out 
of  the  memory  of  men  that  their  eloquent  historiographer 
has  enjoyed  the  privileges  of  the  novelist  as  well  as  histo- 
rian in  his  narrative  of  their  exploits.  Earlier  revolts  were 
usually  the  struggles  of  slaves  against  the  cord  ;  if  suc- 
cessful, slaves  still,  revelling,  like  triumphing  usurpers,  more 
bloodily  than  their  dethroned  masters,  in  the  spoils  of 
victory. 

This  was  the  first  that  stood  upon  principles  as  broad  and 
deep  as  human  nature.  Hence  the  inspiration  it  has  breathed 
into  the  human  race.  Hence,  too,  the  ceaseless,  Ilerodian 
virulence  against  it  of  all  the  monarchic  and  aristocratic 
tyrants  of  man. 

It  would  be  a  curious  and  valuable  study  to  know  how 
and  whence  these  vital  ideas  became  the  soul  of  our  Revolu- 

*  This  striking  American  usage  has  been  revived  in  our  present 
struggle ;  President  Lincoln's  immortal  Proclamation  closing  in  the 
Revolutionary  style,  with  an  appeal  to  "  the  considerate  judgment  of 
mankind," 


444  THE    WORLD    WAR. 

tion  and  our  national  being.  How  did  the  cry  of  taxation 
and  representation — the  whole  preliminary  struggle  become 
lifted  up  into  the  hight  of  a  contest  of  a  people  for  the 
rights  of  man  ?  Was  Puritanism  or  Rousseauism  its  father  ? 
Or  did  both  of  these  seemingly  most  hostile  elements  unite 
in  their  common  basis  of  personal  liberty,  and  so  build  up 
the  great  idea  of  social,  civil,  and  universal  liberty  ?  Was 
it  not  rather  that  the  fullness  of  times  had  come,  arid 
God  sent  forth  this  new  truth  to  renovate  and  unite  the 
earth  ? 

2.  A  second  element  of  our  national  idea  is  the  organiz- 
ing of  the  disrupted  mass  into  planetary  States,  wherein  the 
central  idea  of  liberty  should  have  fullest  scope  under 
righteous  law.  It  is  an  easy  matter  to  destroy  ;  the  diffi- 
culty is  to  build  up.  The  Israelites  could  be  delivered  in  a 
few  days.  It  took,  forty  years  to  make  them  a  nation. 
More  miracles  of  Omnipotence,  and  the  greatest  of  all  mira- 
cles, the  infinitude  of  the  divine  patience,  alone  changed  the 
enfranchised  mob  into  a  mighty  people.  Cromwell  could 
behead  Charles.  To  rehead  the  State,  "there  was  the  rub." 
France  found  like  difficulty.  So  have  the  Central  and  South 
American  republics.  Their  triumphs  were  failures  because 
of  this  weakness. 

A  far  greater  feat,  therefore,  than  the  accomplishment  of 
our  Revolution  was  the  organization  of  the  revolted  colonies 
into  self-poised,  prosperous  commonwealths.  This  work  de- 
manded the  highest  qualities  —  self-respect,  obedience,  indus- 
try, education,  temperance,  religion.  They  exhibited  them 
in  the  highest  degree.  The  sobriety  with  which  they  drank 
the  cup  of  liberty  amazed  the  world.  Expelling  from  the 
continent  the  only  power  that  could  affect  them,  Europe 
looked  to  see  here  as  elsewhere  liberty  speedily  becoming 
licentiousness.  But  they  failed  to  see  the  sight  as  logically 
as  heartily  desired.  We  were  the  lesson  and  the  pattern  of 
the  world  in  our  organific  more  than  in  our  revolutionary  life. 


ARISTOCRACY   AND   DEMOCRACY.  445 

We  built  up  our  •  political  temple  in  perfect  liberty  and  in 
perfect  solidity.  Its  pillars  were  of  the  hardest  marble, 
though  their  finish  was  as  velvet,  and  they  touched  the 
earth  with  the  ease  and  grace  of 

"  The  herald  Mercury, 
New  lighted  on  a  heaven-kissing  hill." 

The  State  became  the  home  and  garden  of  liberty,  shel- 
tered by  the  walls  of  law.  It  brought  forth  fruit  after  its 
kind,  of  many  kinds,  and  of  unspeakable  sweetness  and  re- 
freshment, while  the  leaves  of  its  tree  were  for  the  healing 
of  nations.  Thus,  before  the  Union  was  formed  these  inde- 
pendent communities  had  attained  civil  manhood.  They 
were  sepai'ately  free  and  prosperous,  though  as  yet  disu- 
nited, and  therefore  weak  and  chaotic  in  their  relations  to 
each  other  and  the  powers  of  Europe. 

3.  There  must  be  a  force  added  that  shall  make  them 
one,  and  so  change  chaos  to  cosmos,  worlds  to  a  universe. 
This  is  our  greatest  apparent  characteristic.  By  this  we 
become  the  American  nation.  Had  it  not  been  formed,  no 
such  nationality  would  have  been  known,  for  no  State  could 
have  been  recognized  as  the  representative  of  this  continent. 
Virginia,  New  York,  Massachusetts,  or  the  united  New 
England  might  have  had  boasting  sons.  Not  one  of  them 
could  have  spoken  the  proudest  word  man  as  man  has  ever 
uttered, —  "I  am  an  American."  To  say,  "I  am  a  Roman," 
was  but  to  proclaim  one's  self  connected  Avith  a  city.  To 
say,  "  I  am  an  Englishman,"  is  but  to  boast  of  connection 
with  a  bit  of  an  island.  To  say,  "  I  am  a  Frenchman," 
"  German,"  or  "  Italian,"  is  proclaiming  a  nationality  nar- 
rowed to  a  strip  of  a  continent.  "  I  am  an  American," 
asserts  an  heirship  to  a  hemisphere.  It  is  next  to  saying, 
"  I  am  a  man." 

This  step  was  necessary  to  create  a  nation.  The  segre- 
gated sovereignties  must  become  a  congregated  sovereign. 


446  THE    WORLD   WAR. 

How  shall  it  be  done  ?  Can  it  be  done  at  all  ?  It  is  an 
experiment  that  has  never  succeeded.  Palestine  tried  it 
and  failed.  Greece  tried  it  and  failed.  Rome,  Venice,  Hol- 
land, and  others,  have  called  themselves  republics,  but  they 
never  made  their  provinces  their  equals,  much  less  made 
the  whole  a  unit,  of  which  they  were  but  the  same  fraction 
as  their  fellows.  Nothing  in  history  was  encouraging1.  Yet 
necessity  was  laid  upon  them.  They  saw  that  their  free- 
dom, personal,  social,  civil,  would  avail  them  nothing  if 
contending  States  were  to  dismember  the  continent.  The 
Union  must  be,  and  it  was. 

This  made  us  a  people.  Europe  took  small  note  of  our 
quarrel  with  Britain,  only  as  the  separation  humbled  a 
haughty  neighbor.  France  helped  us  more  out  of  revenge 
for  losing  the  Canadas  than  from  any  hope  or  fear  that  we 
should  become  a  powerful  nation.  Our  disorganized  state, 
for  several  years  after  peace,  was  after  the  former  pattern. 
"  There  is  no  escape,"  shrewd  politicians  of  Europe  say, 
"but  in  the  old  way  —  a  monarchy  gradually  developed 
out  of  weak  and  warring  tribes."  There  was  but  one  way 
of  escape,  and  of  that  they  dreamed  not.  It  was  by  framing 
a  Union,  in  which  some  of  the  most  vital  rights  of  sove- 
reignty, such  as  the  making  of  war  and  peace,  regulating 
commerce  and  currency,  and  representation  at  foreign  courts, 
were  forever  relinquished  ;  while  others  equally  vital,  as  the 
tenure  of  property,  and  punishment  of  death,  were  retained. 

The  Union  closed  up  our  pupilage.  We  entered  on  our 
majority.  It  lifted  us  out  of  the  obscurity  of  barbarous  and 
fighting  clans  into  a  compact,  vigorous,  free  nationality, 
and  made  the  world  behold  the  dawning  of  a  new  day  for 
humanity. 

It  may  be  asked,  "  Was  not  the  trail  of  the  serpent  over 
all  this  ?  "  Yes,  but  Eden  was  Eden  if  the  devil  had  crept 
in  there.  The  theory  of  our  fathers  was  right.  It  was  faith- 
fully applied  to  all  our  people,  save  one  fraction.  It  was 


AEISTOCRACY  AND  DEMOCRACY.  .     447 

conferred  in  form,  though  not  in  feeling  and  in  fact,  upon 
them  in  some  of  the  States.  Our  present  struggle  to  pre- 
serve the  last  of  these  blessings,  is  because  we  had  become 
false  to  the  principle  that  gave  life  to  the  first,  and  so  to  all. 
We  are  wrestling  with  principalities  and  powers  without 
and  within,  to  the  intent  that  our  Union  and  Constitution 
may  conform  to  our  primal  and  preeminently  vital  doctrine — 
the  liberty,  fraternity,  and  unity  of  mankind.  This  is  the 
threefold  cord  of  individual,  State,  and  nation,  which  binds 
America  together.  The  least  right  of  the  least  citizen  is 
preserved  intact  by  the  State  in  its  sphere,  and  the  Union 
in  its,  while  the  volitions  of  all  flow  in  a  mighty  and  steady 
volume  through  the  whole  realm,  and  move  it,  as  with  one 
impulse,  to  universal  influence,  perchance  universal  do- 
minion. 

II.  Such  are  the  principles  first  introduced  into  civil  socie- 
ty, on  a  grand  scale,  by  the  organization  of  the  United  States 
of  America.  Can  we  fail  to  see  that  they  are  in  most  direct 
and  violent  conflict  with  the  civil  institutions  of  Europe  ? 
The  supporters  of  those  institutions  see  it  if  we  do  not.  It 
is  written  in  the  history  of  Europe  ever  since  that  day. 
The  very  year  that  saw  the  inauguration  of  Washington 
saw  the  fires  of  democracy  burst  forth  from  beneath  the 
throne  of  France.  Within  four  years  from  that  date  they 
had  consumed  that  throne  and  him  that  sat  upon  it.  The 
oldest  and  haughtiest  house  in  Europe  had  set  in  blood, 
while  the  titled  blood  of  its  supporters  had  daily  flowed,  a 
dark  and  dreadful  stream,  past  the  Tuileries  into  the  red- 
dened waters  of  the  Seine. 

The  kings  of  Europe  banded  themselves  together  against 
it,  determined  to  put  out  the  direful  conflagration,  or  at 
least  to  keep  it  within  its  original  bounds.  Vain  hope. 
Their  very  effort  spread  the  flames.  Democracy  defied, 
marched  forth  in  defiance.  The  flames  leaped  over  the 
wholg  continent.  Armed  liberty  swept  away  every  throne 


448       .       .  THE   WORLD   WAR. 

in  middle  Europe,  and  cleansed  the  churches  of  their  tro- 
phies of  idolatrous  obsequiousness.  Crowns  were  trampled 
as  mire  in  the  streets.  Imperial  dust  sleeping  haughtily  at 
St.  Denis,  Aix  la  Chapelle,  and  Spires,  was  driven  into  eter- 
nal exile.  It  swept  on,  a  vast  prairie  fire,  through  France, 
Germany,  and  Italy.  Everywhere  the  traces  of  the  great 
conflagration  are  yet  visible.  All  monarchic  and  aristo- 
cratic elements  melted  in  the  fervent  heat.  It  changed  at 
once,  and  in  spite  of  momentary  reaction,  changed  forever 
the  face  and  the  soul  of  the  civilized  world. 

III.  The  question  naturally  occurs  at  this  point,  Why  were 
not  these  successes  successful  ?  Why  did  a  reaction  set 
in  that  has  maintained  its  supremacy,  in  spite  of  all  attempts 
to  the  contrai-y,  to  the  present  hour  ?  The  answer  usually 
is,  that  the  people  of  Europe  were  not  fit  to  enjoy  the  lib- 
erties they  had  secured.  John  Adams  began  this  charge 
as  early  as  1790,  when,  in  the  interests  of  aristocracy  and 
England,  he  called  the  French  people  "  a  nation  of  thirty 
millions  of  atheists."  Others  fastened  upon  them  other 
equally  false  imputations,  such  as  their  ignorance,  violence, 
lawlessness,  brutality.  They  are  the  staple  excuses  with 
which  the  tyrant  ever  defends  his  tyranny.  The  people  of 
France,  even  in  the  bloody  outbreak  of  the  September  mas- 
sacres, as  a  body,  were  peaceful  and  placable.  That  fatal 
month  but  feebly  repaid  the  contempt  and  cruelty  of  cen- 
turies. They  would  have  maintained  their  liberties,  and 
developed  them  in  solidest  and  comeliest  perfection,  but 
for  three  reasons,  for  none  of  which  are  they  directly  re- 
sponsible—  the  hostility  of  the  priesthood,  the  league  of 
frightened  royalties,  and,  sad  conjunction,  the  neutrality 
of  America.  The  first  caused  infidelit}*,  the  second,  war, 
the  third,  defeat  and  re-subjugation. 

The  Papal  Church  clove  to  its  natural  ally,  the  throne. 
Of  one  aristocratic  nature,  they  share  one  destiny.  The 
sense  of  right  in  the  breasts  of  their  devotees  they  strove 


ARISTOCRACY   AND   DEMOCRACY.  449 

to  trample  out  with  the  hoof  of  ecclesiastical  authority.  The 
people  saw  their  rights ;  they  saw  no  form  of  Christianity 
asserting  and  defending  them,  and  they  renounced  the  truth 
for  a  season,  because  it  was  made  the  servant  of  a  lie. 
Yet  never  substantially  out  of  Paris,  never  in  the  masses 
there,  was  Christ  rejected.  They  staggered  blindly,  with- 
out the  appointed  guides,  but  they  groped  not  in  utter 
darkness.  The  same  experience  has  partially  transpired 
here.  Men  of  active  conscience  and  profound  sense  of  the 
right  saw  the  Church  speechless  before  the  horrid  demon 
of  Slavery  ;  nay,  in  many  of  its  organizations  prostrate 
before  it ;  and  they  have  been  tempted  to  reject,  not  only 
the  sinning  Church,  but  the  divine  truths  which  have  thus 
been  held  in  unrighteousness.  Yet  as  here  so  there,  the 
people  would  have  rallied  from  the  shock  their  infidelity 
gave  to  their  conscience  ;  the  Church  would  have  been  rent 
as  here,  and  its  ministers  largely  allied  themselves  to  the 
cause  of  man  as  well  as  of  God,  and  faith  and  worship  would 
have  crowned  and  sanctified  a  triumphing  democracy.  This 
consummation  was  prevented  by  the  war  into  which  they 
were  drawn  by  the  league  of  all  the  thrones  against  them, 
and  the  refusal  of  this  nation  to  aid  them  in  their  struggle 
to  maintain  their  liberties.  This  neutrality  created  immense 
excitement  at  the  time  of  its  adoption,  sundered  Cabinets 
and  Congress,  threw  Washington,  though  President,  into 
the  minority,  and  organized  the  party  which  is  now  breath- 
ing its  last,  and  which  is  dying  solely  because  it  abandoned 
the  only  principle  on  which  it  began  to  be,  earnest  devotion 
to  the  rights  of  man  everywhere. 

This  doctrine  has  been  a  chief  source  of  evil  to  ourselves 
and  to  our  cause  at  home  and  abroad.  It  was  a  departure 
from  principle  under  the  guise  of  selfish  policy.  It  was  the 
first  temptation  and  the  first  fall  of  the  American  nation, 
and  the  prolific  parent  of  all  our  woes.  The  sword  has 
been  found  two-edged,  and  the  stout  British  arm  has  made 
29 


450  THE   WORLD   WAR. 

it  cut  as  deep  into  our  vitals,  as  our  youthful  arm  did  into 
that  of  the  more  youthful  French  republic.  The  chastise- 
ment it  has  inflicted  has  revived  the  once  potent  views  as 
to  its  character,  and  the  restraints,  unjust,  unbrotherly, 
ungrateful,  and  unwise,  which  it  imposes  on  our  proper 
duty  in  the  affairs  of  nations.* 

Slavery,  the  parent  of  our  aristocracy,  and  parent  of  dis- 
union and  war,  sprung  into  new  life  on  Washington's  proc- 
lamation of  neutrality.  The  first  Fugitive  Slave  Law  was 
signed  in  the  same  year  and  by  the  same  hand  that  had 
signed  that  proclamation.  .  So  soon  did  this  fatal  germ 
shoot  up  from  the  error-planted  soil.  That  tree  has  grown 
with  steady  rapidity.  We  sat  weak,  sick,  and  dying  beneath 
its  pestilent  shade.  By  a  clear  working  of  Providence,  the 
bitterest  and  extremest  foe  to  our  national  ideas  grew  out  of 
their  very  root,  because  we  sought  to  selfishly  confine  them 
to  ourselves.  The  essence  and  perfection  of  anti-liberty 
and  anti-Union  flourished  in  the  soil  of  a  selfish  liberty  and 
Union.  Had  we  vigorously  aided  in  the  establishment  of 
the  former  ideas  abroad,  the  latter  would  have  never  flour- 
ished at  home.  Our  spirit  would  have  informed  our  action, 
and  the  earnest  defense  of  liberty  there  would  have  speedily 
delivered  us  from  the  power  and  the  presence  of  slavery 
here.  Had  we  aided  our  friends  then  we  should  have  had 
no  enemies  now.  That  neutrality  destroyed  our  friends  and 
multiplied  our  enemies.  No  less  than  six  republics,  the 
fruit  of  our  loins,  have  we  sacrificed  to  this  mistaken  policy. 
We  refused  to  hear  France  when  she  cried  to  us,  as  she 
saw  the  armies  of  Europe  gathering  under  the  lead  of  our 
greatest  foe.  "  Let  the  galled  jade  wince,"  we  wickedly 
cried  ;,"  our  withers  are  unstrung."  Lafayette  had  exerted 
no  small  influence  in  giving  Washington  a  free  nation. 
Washington  refuses  to  aid  Lafaj^ette  in  maintaining  the  free- 
dom .to  which  they  had  attained.  The  Poles  appealed  to 

*  See  Note  XVI. 


ARISTOCRACY   AND   DEMOCRACY.  451 

our  arms,  but  appealed  in  vain.  Ireland  twice  sought  to 
deliver  itself  from  the  clutch  of  its  oppressor :  we  blandly 
witnessed  its  failure.  The  Central  South  American  repub- 
lics asked  for  cooperation  :  we  gave  them  a  resolution. 
To  Greece  we  sent  brave  words  but  no  sword.  We  have 
calmly  seen  Napoleon  trample  out  in  Rome  the  sparks  that 
our  hands  had  scattered.  Garibaldi  and  Mazzini  looked  to 
us  for  aid,  and  looked  in  vain.  Finally,  Kossuth  was  sent 
to  us,  to  save  us,  if  possible,  from  ruin,  by  bringing  us  into 
active  cooperation  with  our  European  brethren.  He  passed 
through  the  land,  the  most  feted  and  most  lauded  of  orators. 
But  he  effected  nothing.  We  were  stupefied  with  the  en- 
chantments of  neutrality  and  slavery.  "  What's  Hecuba 
to  me,  or  I  to  Hecuba?"  we  selfishly  proclaimed.  "Let  us 
eat  arid  drink,  for  to-morrow  we  die."  Too  true  was  our 
unconscious  prophecy.  We  were  then  struck  with  death. 
"  Material  aid  for  Hungary  ?  Hungary,  torn  by  the 
talons  and  beaks  of  the  double-headed  eagles  of  Austria 
and  Russia?  Ah,  no!  Hungary  has  our  sympathy,  you 
our  ears, — no  more."  We  had  eaten  the  lotus.  It  was  not 
for  us  to  go  a  Quixoting  over  the  world  rescuing  imaginary 
Dulcineas  from  imaginary  robbers.  "  Liberty  and  Democ- 
racy for  Europe,"  did  you  say  ?  Our  grandfathers  heard 
that  cry,  and  stopped  their  ears.  Why  should  we  unstop 
purs.  We  were  born  deaf. 

"  Our  voice  was  thin,  as  voices  from  the  grave, 
And  deep  asleep  we  seemed,  yet  all  awake, 
And  music  in  our  ears  our  beating  hearts  did  make." 

And  with  one  voice  the  nation  cried,  — 

"  Let  us  alone.     What  pleasure  can  we  have 
To  war  with  evil.     Is  there  any  peace 
In  ever  climbing  up  the  climbing  wave? 
All  things  have  rest,  and  ripen  toward  the  grave 
In  silence  :  ripen,  fall,  and  cease  ; 
Give  us  long  rest  or  death,  dark  death  or  dreamful  ease." 


452  THE   WORLD   WAR. 

We  refused  to  listen  to  his  cry.  He  turned  sadly  from  us, 
and  lo,  we  were  waked  with  the  knife  of  our  brother  at  our 
throat,  while  we  cried  wildly  for  help  and  no  help  came. 
How  we  staggered  in  blindness,  and  fell,  weak  with  loss  of 
spirit,  of  confidence,  of  friends,  of  the  blood  of  our  sons. 
Had  not  God  lifted  us,  and  animated  us  with  principle,  the 
higher  and  only  life,  we  should  have  been  as  when  He  over- 
threw Sodom  and  Gomorrah. 

Thus  have  His  laws  had  their  revenge.  We  have  expe- 
rienced the  only  possible  result.  The  disease  our  fathers 
hated  and  feared,  and  hoped  would  depart,  by  the  very  in- 
activity they  imposed  upon  us  grew  to  an  awful  magnitude. 
The  farewell  address  says,  "  Let  us  keep  what  treaties  we 
have  made,  but  make  no  more."  Live  in  the  swaddling 
bands  of  selfishness.  Be  the  Japan  of  Christendom,  and  lo, 
our  bandages,  like  a  Chinese  lady's  shoe,  compel  weakness 
and  corruption,  not  strength,  sweetness  and  beauty.  Our 
evils  and  perils,  not  repressed  and  eliminated  by  a  vigorous 
out-door  exercise,  but  nursed  by  an  in-door  luxury  of  indo- 
lence, make  us  faint  even  unto  death.  We  have  lived  solely 
by  the  miraculous  goodness  of  God.* 

IV.  But  if  we  refused  to  accompany  our  principles  with 
our  prowess  in  their  march  through  the  earth,  the  principles 
themselves  went  forth  conquering  and  to  conquer.  They 
could  not  be  hidden  under  a  bushel  though  we  hid  ourselves 
there.  Our  relations  were,  in  reality,  in  spite  of  our  adju- 
rations and  mercenary  spirit,  far  more  political  than  com- 
mercial. Our  doctrines  affected  the  theories  of  publicists  ; 
they  soon  affected  the  practice  of  the  people.  "Every  con- 
tinental writer  on  civil  government,  with  a  very  few  excep- 
tions," says  J.  Stuart  Mill,  "  for  two  generations,  has  been 
an  ardent  democrat."  He  traces  this  as  directly  to  America 
as  the  tides  in  the  harbor  are  traced  to  the  outer  sea.  "A 
democratic  republic,"  he  says,  "  came  to  occupy  a  large 

*  See  Note  XVII. 


ARISTOCRACY   AND  DEMOCRACY.  453 

portion  of  the  earth's  surface,  and  to  make  itself  felt  as  one 
of  the  most  powerful  members  of  the  community  of  nations." 
Had  it  been  free  in  fact  and  free  to  act,  it  would  have  long 
since  republicanized  Christendom. 

Every  country  felt  that  earthquake.  Enceladus  stirred, 
the  volcano  muttered,  and  kings  trembled.  Thrones  rocked 
on  the  sea  of  a  restless  democracy.  They  would  have  been 
buried  in  its  waves  but  for  the  rise  of  one  man,  who,  like 
the  inheritor  of  his  name  and  seat  to-day,  sought  to  destroy 
the  very  principles  through  which  alone  he  became  the 
arbiter  of  Europe,  its  kings  and  its  peoples.  Still  his 
course  was  ever  felt  to  be  against  thrones  and  kings.  On 
the  walls  of  a  hotel  in  Ooblenz  I  saw  a  little  picture  of  a 
company  of  European  kings,  to  whom  a  messenger  is  an- 
nouncing the  escape  of  Napoleon  from  Elba. 

"  My  God,"  cry  they,  with  white  lips,  "  is  he  come 
again  ?  "  Such  a  picture  in  that  town,  full  of  soldiers,  and 
strengthened  with  the  finest  fortifications  of  Europe,  is  as 
significant  of  the  popular  sentiments  as  would  have  been  a 
portrait  of  John  Brown  in  the  cabin  of  a  Charleston  slave. 
For  though  he  betrayed  the  cause  of  democracy,  he  was 
ever  and  instinctively  the  enemy  of  the  feudal  aristocracy. 
Marrying  into  them,  he  was  still  like  Samson  with  his 
Philistine  bride,  none  the  less  the  foe  of  her  brethren. 

Great  Britain  preserved  herself  from  the  eruption  of  these 
ideas  in  two  ways.  Having  waged  a  long  war  with  us  in  at- 
tempting to  suppress  these  doctrines,  her  people,  as  is  usually 
the  case  in  belligerent  nations,  became  largely  hostile  to  the 
principles  of  those  with  whom  they  were  contending. 

But  this  cause  was  slight  to  that  created  by  the  fears  and 
the  vigor  of  her  nobility  and  gentry.  For  forty  years  they 
struggled  to  suppress  the  growth  and  extirpate  the  root  of 
the  tree  of  liberty.  In  America,  in  Europe,  on  every  sea 
and  shore,  they  waged  ceaseless  war.  Burke  became  their 


454  THE   WORLD    WAR. 

defender,  and  sold  his  birthright  for  a  mess  of  royal  pottage, 
doing  for  the  cause  of  man,  that  had  nursed  him  to  great- 
ness, precisely  what  his  great  successor,  Brougham,  has  done 
in  our  day  —  turning  on  the  principles  and  people  that  had 
elevated  him,  and  fawning  at  the  feet  of  a  despising  royalty. 
He  had  impeached  king  and  nobles  when  he  dared  to  con- 
front Hastings,  and  king  and  nobles  knew  it,  and  never  con- 
demned that  faithful  ally.  Not  many  years  elapse  before  he 
whines,  in  eloquent  terms,  for  the  king  and  nobles  of  local 
oppressions  as  deep  and  damning  as  any  committed  in  India. 
He  leaves  the  people  out  of  his  category  of  British  rulers. 
He  was  so  sensible  of  his  treason  that  he  chose  to  be  buried 
in  a  wooden  coffin,  that  dissolution  might  be  the  more 
speedy,  and  his  body  escape  the  profanations  with  which 
the  anticipated  triumph  of  democracy  in  England  would,  he 
feared,  assuredly  visit  it. 

But  the  ruling  class  was  not  content  with  the  service  of 
pamphleteers,  however  able  ;  they  imprisoned  those  who  as- 
sumed, with  any  earnestness  of  purpose,  the  popular  side  — 
poets  like  Montgomery  and  Leigh  Hunt,  editors  like  Cobbett, 
lecturers,  almost  voiceless  thinkers,  every  one  who  dared 
avow  their  sympathy  for  the  cause  of  man.  They  have 
suppressed  substantial  freedom  of  speech  to  this  day.* 

*  Speaking  of  the  difference  between  English  and  continental  publi- 
cists on  theories  of  government,  Mr.  Mill  significantly  says,  p.  11,  "A 
similar  [that  is  a  democratic]  tone  of  sentiment  might  by  this  time  have 
been  prevalent  in  our  country  if  circumstances,  which  for  a  time  en- 
couraged it,  had  continued  unchanged."  He  elsewhere  declares  (p.  33) 
that  "  the  law  of  England  on  the  subject  of  the  press  is  as  servile  to- 
day as  it  was  in  the  time  of  the  Tudors  ;  "  and  while  declaring  in  the  text 
that  there  is  no  danger  of  its  being  enforced,  has  to  confess  in  the  notes 
that  it  was  enforced  as  late  as  1858.  These  laws  were  rigidly  carried 
out  by  Castlereagh  and  Ellenborough,  and  caused  a  worse  reign  of  terror 
in  England  than  prevailed  in  France.  Here  a  few  tyrants  lost  their 
heads,  and  executions  raged  for  a  single  month.  There  for  two  genera- 
tions every  lover  of  equal  human  rights  has  been  prevented  from  declar- 
ing his  sentiments.  To  do  so  now  would  insure  the  utterer  a  speedy 
acquaintance  with  the  cell  and  ax  of  the  Tower. 


ARISTOCRACY   AND   DEMOCRACY.  455 

They  stirred  up  a  war  with  France,  and  compelled  the  Con- 
tinental monarchs  to  make  their  territory  the  battle-ground 
against  humanity.  They  developed  the  power  of  Napoleon, 
and  thus  attained  their  end,  his  triumphs  establishing  the 
despotism  that  they  loved,  and  overthrowing  the  republican- 
ism which  they  feared. 

V.  The  present  state  of  this  conflict  is  not  less  important. 

The  degradation  of  our  people  before  the  slave  power,  and 
the  almost  total  extinction  of  our  liberties,  the  utter  extinc- 
tion of  our  sympathy  as  a  nation  with  the  peoples  of  Europe, 
had  made  their  oppressors  less  fearful.  Our  name  was  yet 
a  spell,  perhaps,  to  evoke  the  spirit  of  democracy  withal, 
but  they  saw  that  when  we  boldly  supported  and  sought  to 
extend  the  most  anti-democratic  institution  in  the  world, 
that  our  name  might  call  this  spirit  from  the  vasty  deep,  but 
they  did  not  fear  that  it  would  answer  us.  They  could 
safely  send  hither  the  heir  apparent  of  their  throne  to  re- 
ceive our  adulations,  and  to  witness,  with  pitying  contempt, 
an  enslaved  and  dying  democracy. 

But  the  uprisal  of  a  great  people  in  the  cause  of  its 
fathers,  its  fame,  and  its  God,  quickened  all  these  ancient 
fears.  They  had  visions  of  corresponding  insurrections  at 
home.  Their  martyrs  for  liberty,  from  Vane  to  Orsini,  arose 
to  avenge  their  cause  by  creating  the  free  and  equal  state 
for  which  they  had  died. 

Hence  they  instantly  arrange  themselves  on  the  side  of 
our  foes.  They  leap  to  embrace  the  hideous  monster  of 
Slavery.  Its  bloody  hand  is  at  the  throat  of  democracy. 
They  trust  it  will  stifle  its  divine  life  here  and  everywhere 
forever  and  forever. 

1.  The  British  government  lead  off  in  this  degrading  al- 
liance. It  brought  forth  fruit  after  its  kind.  The  recital  of 
the  acts  in  which  the  feelings  of  the  British  aristocracy  found 
expression  would  be  longer  than  that  in  which  our  first  Con- 
gress indicted  its  king.  Before  a  battle  had  been  fought, 


456  THE   WORLD   WAR. 

even  before  an  army  on  either  side  had  been  gathered,  it 
took  every  possible  step  to  insult,  weaken,  embarrass,  and 
destroy  our  government,  except  that  of  active  hostilities, 
and  this  was  withheld  only  from  fear  of  civil  war  at  home. 
It  sheltered  piratical  steamers  in  its  harbors  ;  and  when  our 
vessels  of  war  lay  in  wait  for  them  in  the  Channel,  it  put 
its  men  of  war  under  their  bows,  with  directions  to  blow 
them  out  of  the  water  if  they  presumed  to  obey  the  orders 
of  their  government.  And  this  too,  not  in  British  waters, 
but  upon  the  high  seas.  It  forbade  our  national  vessels  from 
staying  in  its  ports  over  twenty-four  hours,  or  coaling  there 
oftener  than  once  in  three  months,  while  its  own  vessels 
rode  at  anchor  in  our  harbors.  It  recognized  the  rebels  as 
belligerents  before  they  had  fought  a  single  battle;  when 
they  had  only  mastered  a  single  fort  and  a  starving  garrison. 
To  do  this  was  to  recognize  them  as  a  nation  ;  for  nations 
only  have  a  belligerent,  that  is,  a  war-making  power.  This 
it  did  not  grant  to  Italy  till  all  her  battles  had  been  fought 
and  won.  This  it  never  gave  to  Hungary,  though  she  was 
for  months  successful,  and  was  only  overthrown  by  foreign 
intervention.  This  it  did  not  give  to  Poland,  though  she 
maintained  for  over  a  year  a  provisional  government  by 
arms  as  ably  as  the  Confederates  did  theirs,  and  that  too 
against  a  power  it  hates  and  dreads  almost  as  much  as  it 
does  the  United  States.  The  all-important  difference  is,  that 
the  rising  of  Poland  is  against  it  own  institutions,  our  in- 
surrection is  in  its  favor.  Russia  is  dangerous  to  its  empire, 
America  to  itself.  Eussia  may  rob  it  of  India,  our  ideas 
will  rob  it  of  England. 

The  whole  scope  of  its  proclamation  was  to  confer  nation- 
ality upon  the  rebels.  So  they  understood  it.  So  did  we. 
So  did  England  herself.  It  would  have  been  followed  by 
its  legitimate  acts  but  for  the  grand  uprising  of  our  people, 
and  a  fear  of  the  future  at  home. 

Her  course  subsequently  was  consistent.     In  her  feelings 


ARISTOCRACY  AND  DEMOCRACY.  457 

as  well  as  policy  that  were  exhibited  in  the  Trent  imbroglio, 
in  allowing  armed  privateers  to  sail  from  her  ports,  in  re- 
fusing to  amend  her  laws  while  acknowledging  their  inef- 
ficiency, so  as  to  control  these  pirates,  she  acted  according 
to  the  theory  she  wished  and  purposed  should  prove  true. 
Lord  Palmerston  was  called  in  Paliament  "  our  Confederate 
Premier"  amid  the  applause  of  the  house.  He  declared  in 
his  seat  that  "  the  difference  between  him  and  Mr.  Cobden 
consists  in  the  fact  that  Mr.  Cobden  considered  that  but  one 
government  exists  within  the  original  boundaries  of  the 
Union,  while  the  administration  have,  from  the  beginning, 
ACTED  as  if  there  were  two."  That  is,  they  gave  the  rebels 
a  practical,  but  not  formal  recognition. 

All  this  has  been  done  by  instinct.  "  Instinct  is  a  great 
matter."  It  made  them  detect  and  worship  monarchy  in 
the  disguise  of  the  robber  Slavery,  as  it  made  Falstaff  dis- 
cern and  respect  his  master  in  the  garb  of  a  highwayman. 
It  has  been  as  natural  and  universal  with  the  ruling  classes, 
as  has  been  our  enthusiasm  here  for  the  Union.  "  Five 
sixths,"  Mr.  Cobden  declared,  "of  the  upper  classes  were 
in  favor  of  our  disruption."  As  here  a  few  adhered  to 
slavery  and  secession,  the  apparent,  against  freedom,  the 
real  national  idea,  so  there  a  few  have  stood  forth  for  the 
theories  and  boastings  of  the  nation  against  its  root  and 
ruling  principle.  These  few  were  most  rarely  in  govern- 
mental positions,  much  less  of  titled  and  gentle  blood.  Al- 
most every  lord,  however  mushroom,  was  meanly  unan- 
imous. Abolitionists  like  Brougham  and  Shaftesbury,  liberals 
like  Morpeth  and  Russell,  men  of  tact  without  principles 
like  Palmerston  and  D'Israeli,  all  took  counsel  together 
against  us.  The  Duke  of  Argyle  was  almost  the  only  titled 
exception  to  this  universal  law. 

The  gentry,  who  are  the  wall-flowers  of  the  nobility, — out- 
side wall-flowers,  ever  trying  to  creep  over  into  the  sacred 
inclosure,  even  if  of  such  blood  as  Buxton  and  Wilberforce, 


458  THE   WORLD   WAR. 

turned  up  their  noses  at  the  dead  democracy  of  America. 
"  An  ounce  of  civet,  good  apothecary,"  they  cried,  "these 
west  winds  smell  dreadfully." 

The  lackeys  of  the  Church,  press,  of  the  counting-house 
and  factory,  fell  into  like  spasms.  They  all  wore  livery. 
They  worshiped  the  upper,  and  trampled  on  the  lower 
classes.  They  joined  the  upper  in  their  detestation  of 
America. 

The  Times  declared  that  not  a  gentleman,  member  of 
Parliament,  nobleman,  nor  representative  Londoner  sat  on 
Mr.  Beecher's  platform  at  Exeter  Hall.  It  carried  its  syc- 
ophancy to  such  a  pitch  that  it  asserted  that  "  the  two 
essentials  of  a  government  to-day  are  monarchy  and  money." 
Thus  stood  ruling  England  till  success  crowned  our  arms  ; 
thus  in  feeling  stands  she  still. 

It  is  in  no  spirit  of  invective  that  we  make  this  record, 
but  simply  as  students  of  natural  laws,  which  work  as  clear- 
ly and  inevitably  in  the  realm  of  politics  as  in  that  of  science 
and  religion.  They  are  the  creatures  of  the  idea  that  con- 
trols them  —  an  idea  irrepressibly  hostile  to  that  which  has 
been  in  debate  on  our  fields  and  seas,  and  which  has  come 
forth  the  unquestioned  conqueror.  They  will  yet  rejoice  in 
its  overthrow,  and  in  their  absorption  into  the  grander  name 
than  Queen,  Lords,  and  Commons  —  even  that  of  the  People 
of  England.  That  people  we  profoundly  esteem.  They 
have  acted  as  nobly  in  their  chains,  as  our  slaves  did  in 
theirs.  We  doubt  not  their  future  sovereignty,  and  an 
increasing  glory  to  the  national  name  when  that  hour 
dawns. 

2.  But  our  conflict  with  continental  crowns  is  none  the 
less  positive  though  less  marked.  It  is  less  marked  because 
those  crowns  have"  had  all  that  they  could  do  to  keep  their 
places  on  their  masters'  heads,  —  so  intelligent  and  deter- 
mined are  their  peoples.  Blondin  has  too  much  to  do  in 
keeping  his  balance  over  the  deadly-flying  glassiness  of 


ARISTOCRACY   AND   DEMOCRACY.  459 

Niagara's  stream  to  attend  to  the  difficulties  of  rival 
gymnasts.  The  Pope,  Francis  of  Austria,  William  of 
Prussia,  Victor  Emanuel,  the  King  of  the  Danes,  all  are 
tossed  on  the  wildest  seas,  and  may  in  a  moment  be  dashed 
upon  the  fatal  rocks  of  Democracy. 

Napoleon  was  the  only  one  that  could  look  abroad,  and 
he  more  because  he  is  a  Blondin,  the  prince  of  tight-rope 
dancers,  than  because  his  vigilance  is  less  or  his  peril  less. 
From  him  learn  all.  He  made  our  traditional  friendship  with 
France  a  deceitful  brook.  Why  ?  Because  his  France  is 
not  France.  She  is  garroted.  He  speaks  for  himself,  not 
for  his  people.  They  are  intensely  democratic.  Their  elec- 
tions show  the  vitality  of  their  democracy.  He  knows  that 
our  salvation  is  his  destruction,  our  destruction  his  preserva- 
tion. Therefore  has  he  steadily  sought  our  ruin.  With  the 
complicity  of  England,  Spain,  and  Austria  he  seized  Mexico 
as  the  basis  of  operations  against  us.  His  success  there 
drew  forth  the  public  congratulation  of  every  crowned  head 
on  the  Continent.  They  trusted  that  this  triumph  assured 
our  overthrow. 

The  European  Church,  in  its  highest  officials,  has  been 
their  close  ally.  The  guns  of  St.  Angelo  exulted  over  the 
fall  of  Mexico.  The  Pope  went  still  further  in  revealing  his 
fears  of  democracy,  when  he  called  Jefferson  Davis  "  Illustri- 
ous President."  The  Protestant  State  Churches  have  been 
equally  unfriendly.  They  see  that  the  bands  of  Church 
and  State  will  be  the  first  to  dissolve  when  the  state  and 
the  people  are  one.  John  Bright,  the  future  Premier  of 
England,  has  already  more  than  hinted  at  such  a  separa- 
tion.* 

VI.  Such  is  the  past  and  present  conflict  of  America  with 
Europe.  It  has  a  future.  We  can  read  it  in  their  light. 

*  This  step  is  already  taken  in  the  election  of  a  Parliament  pledged 
to  disestablishing  of  the  Irish  Church.  The  elder  must  follow  her  daugh- 
ter, and  State  and  Church  cease  to  be  one. 


460  THE    WOELD   WAR. 

It  is  simply  this,  Europe  must  become  a  Union  of  Democratic 
States,  in  league,  if  not  one  with  America.  The  instinctive 
cry  of  the  people  of  France  and  America  just  threescore 
years  and  ten  ago  must  be  answered,  —  "  We  are  One." 

Great  truths  are  always  simple.  When  first  announced 
they  are  apt  to  appear  visionary.  Yet  when  once  embraced 
they  become  as  familiar  and  pleasant  as  light  and  life.  The 
truth  of  the  absolute  unity  of  Man,  how  simple,  how  sublime ! 
And  yet -when  we  see  in  a  brightness  above  the  brightness 
of  the  sun,  whither  it  is  leading  us,  how  many  start  back 

appalled,  — 

';  And  each  particular  hair  doth  stand  on  end, 
Like  quills  upon  a  fretful  porcupine." 

So  this  self-evident,  imperative,  fast-hastening  event,  how 
few  believe,  how  few  delightedly  embrace !  How  many  say, 
"Why,  they  are  not  fit  to  govern  themselves."  So  we  said, 
till  within  three  years,  "  The  slaves  are  not  fit  to  be  freed  at 
once.  They  must  be  trained  to  liberty."  Nobody  but  a 
little  clique  of  so-called  fanatics  dared  to  cry,  for  thirty 
years,  "Immediate  and  Unconditional  Emancipation  I"  and 
they  did  not  dare,  had  they  desired,  to  add,  "By  the  red 
arm  of  War."  If  they  had,  they  would  have  perished,  or 
ere  their  truth  was  born.  But  God  has  answered  their  cry, 
though  in  a  way  of  which  they  dreamed  not.  The  slaves 
were  liberated  in  an  instant,  thrust  out  in  a  night,  as  were 
Pharaoh's,  through  our  fear  for  ourselves,  not  regard  for 
them.  New  Year's  eve  will  ever  be  the  American- Afric's 
Passover.  And  lo  !  at  the  sight  every  one  exults.  They 
declare  it  to  be  marvelously  natural  and  proper.  In  fact, 
it  is  the  only  possible  way. 

So  shall  we  see  concerning  this  truth.  It  started  from 
Independence  Hall.  It  will  not  cease  to  march  till  it  has 
subdued  the  world.  Its  line  has  gone  out  through  all  the 
earth,  and  its  words  unto  the  end  of  the  world.* 

*  See  Note  XVIII. 


ARISTOCRACY  AND   DEMOCRACY.  461 

Not  a  state,  except  the  free  state  of  Switzerland,  and  the 
wealthy  state  of  England,  but  that  has  been  rent  with  this 
new  cloth  sewed  into  its  moth-eaten  purple.  The  new  wine 
is  ever  bursting  the  rotten  bottles  of  hereditary  privilege, 
from  which  they  are  trying  vainly  to  exclude  it.  They  are 
ever  busy  repairing  their  ragged  robes  of  royalty,  which 
the  people  are  ever  rending,  but  the  Sartor  Resartus  has  to 
do  his  patching  with  new  cloth  —  popular  suffrage,  constitu- 
tional government,  or  some  fresh-woveii  bit  from  the  Amer- 
ican looms. 

The  conflict  is  springing  up  in  England.  Her  political 
managers  are  the  shrewdest  in  the  world.  They  have 
steered,  with  remarkable  skill,  their  Ship  of  State.  Through 
the  war  they  held  high  carnival.  They  were  warm  sup- 
porters of  the  murderer  of  Liberty  in  France  :  they  talked 
about  Poland,  but  declared  they  would  do  nothing  to  save 
her.  They  allowed  the  people  to  compliment  Garibaldi, 
while  they  rejoiced  that  Victor  Emanuel  had  shot  him.  I 
heard  Mr.  Disraeli  thus  sharply  and  truly  retort  on  Lord 
Palmerston,  when  he  declared  that  the  cause  of  the  unity 
of  Italy  required  the  countenance  of  his  government. 

"  The  noble  lord  observed  that  not  any  generous  word 
of  sympathy,  no  word  of  approbation,  ever  came  from  me 
in  favor  of  the  Italians.  That  cannot  be  said  of  the  noble 
lord.  Words  enough  he  has  given  the  Italians  ;  but  what 
more  he  has  given,  the  Italians  know  best.  I  can  only  say, 
that  if  all  the  encouragement  they  have  received,  and  all 
the  assistance  they  have  had  in  their  hard  fortunes,  were 
furnished  by  the  noble  lord,  I  doubt  very  much  whether 
they  would  occupy  the  position  which  they  now  do." 

Even  these  "  windy  inspirations  of  forced  breath  "  were 
not  given  until  a  year  after  their  liberties  had  been  achieved. 
And  these  same  rulers  of  a  Protestant  nation  have  since  al- 
lowed Napoleon  to  suppress  liberal  institutions  and  free- 
dom of  religion  in  Mexico,  and  to  seek  to  establish  monarchy 


462  THE   WORLD   WAR. 

and  papacy  in  that  land,  solely  that  their  class  might  not 
be  absorbed  by  the  natural  growth  of  democracy  here  and 
at  home. 

But  that  democracy  is  growing.  Every  ardent  advocate 
of  America  is  a  latent  or  patent,  a  nascent  or  adult  demo- 
crat. John  Bright,  their  Quaker  leader,  —  like  our  Quaker 
leaders,  he  who  started  the  great  reform,  and  he  who  for  a 
quarter  of  a  century  has  written  the  battle-songs  of  freedom, 
—  is  a  bold  and  earnest  fighter  in  its  ranks.  His  head  may 
yet  grace  the  block  in  behalf  of  the  cause  of  man.  He  has 
had  the  courage  to  say  that  a  President  elected  by  the  suf- 
frage of  a  free  and  equal  people,  is  in  a  far  loftier  seat  than 
one  inheriting  a  throne.  He  talks  of  a  world-republic  after 
the  model  of  America.  His  coadjutors,  just  returned  to 
Parliament,  will  replace  the  fallen  Cobden  in  their  zeal  for 
the  people.  Hughes  boasted  that  the  men  of  toil  gave  him 
his  seat,  and  Stuart  Mills  was  yet  more  pronounced  in  his 
adhesion  to  the  principles  which  will  necessitate  democracy. 
Gladstone  appeals  from  the  most  conservative  to  the  most- 
radical  of  constituencies.  He  must  regard  the  people  who 
trust  him. 

Poland,  in  its  brief  insurrection,  revealed  the  same  ten- 
dency. The  proclamation  of  the  national  committee  was 
based  on  that  of  President  Lincoln's.  The  serfs  were  prom- 
ised freedom  and  the  possession  of  the  soil  they  till,  —  in 
this  respect  in  advance  of  our  proclamation  and  action,  — 
while  loyal  masters  were  to  be  reimbursed  from  the  national 
treasury.  Such  decree,  if  carried  out,  would  change  the 
face  of  Europe.  Lest  it  should  be  carried  out  by  the  suc- 
cess of  the  people,  the  three  powers  of  England,  Austria,  and 
France  hastened  to  inform  Russia  that  she  must  make  some 
concession,  or  they  would  take  the  matter  into  their  own 
hands.  Not  by  recognizing  this  decree  and  establishing  the 
republic  of  Poland  —  a  thousand  times,  no  !  but  by  the  erec- 
tion of  some  sort  of  a  kingdom,  whose  movements  should 


ARISTOCRACY  AND   DEMOCRACY.  463 

not  jar  too  harshly  the  Prince  Rupert's  drop  in  which  each 
of  them  dwells.  The  success  of  Russia  in  suppressing-  the 
uprising  made  them  rescind  their  demands.  It  was  not  to 
humble  her,  but  to  save  themselves,  that  they  were  so  active. 
That  success  will  yet  result  in  failure  :  the  principles  of  that 
uprising  must  prevail  if  their  nationality  fails. 

Italy  is  thus  breaking  the  bonds  of  centuries.  Michael 
Angelo's  gigantic,  heavy  slumbering  Night  is  changed  into 
the  more  gigantic,  arousing  Day.  What  life,  what  strength, 
in  its  Samsonian  limbs  !  It  will  speedily  awake,  arise,  and 
go  forth  as  a  bridegroom  out  of  his  chamber.  He  who  has 
once  trodden  its  soil,  and  seen  the  enthusiasm  of  its  people 
for  Garibaldi,  whose  bust  and  picture  are  everywhere,  knows 
that  its  present  government  is  but  the  brittlest  of  cords  that 
holds  for  a  moment  the  upsoaring  eagle.  France  alone  can 
stay  the  unification  and  republicanizing  of  that  land. 

Greece  cast  off  the  incubus  of  ages  in  an  hour,  and 
proceeded,  in  calmest  style,  to  elect  her  ruler.  I  saw  that 
election  in  Athens.  It  was  exactly  like  one  in  America — 
the  same  talking  in  the  streets  and  at  the  cafes,  the  same 
running  of  carriages  with  voters  for  rival  candidates,  the 
same  counting  of  the  ballots  at  the  polls,  in  fine,  a  purely 
American  idea,  as  is  universal  suffrage  carried  out  in  purely 
American  style,  in  that  most  ancient  and  most  famous  of 
democracies.  The  ostracizing  and  approving  shells  and 
pebbles,  carried  round  the  Pnyx,  were  replaced  by  poll 
booths,  inspectors  of  elections,  ballots,  and  all  the  other 
paraphernalia  of  her  sister  more  than  twenty  hundred  years 
younger.  Had  not  England  restrained  her,  she  would  have 
declared  herself  of  the  political  faith  of  her  fathers.  In 
conjunction  with  Napoleon,  that  power  compelled  them  to 
continue  their  throne.  They  called  a  pale  lad  from  the 
Rhode  Island  of  European  kingdoms  to  rule  a  nation  of 
democrats,  whose  constitution,  like  ours,  forbids  any  citizen 


464  THE   WORLD  WAR. 

from  wearing  a  title.  More  than  one  Athenian  said  to  me, 
at  that  time,  that  England  would  .not  allow  them  to  establish 
a  republic.  She  appoints  their  head  as  indifferently  to  their 
wishes  or  to  the  popular  suffrage,  over  which  they  were  so 
jubilant,  as  an  Arab  is  to  his  daughter's  choice  of  a  hus- 
band, or  a  slaveholder's  to  his  slave's  choice  of  anything. 
A  great  time  they  had  with  their  universal  suffrage.  The 
king  they  get  had  not  a  single  vote.  The  prince  they  al- 
most unanimously  ask  for,  as  well  as  the  nation  that  invites 
him,  are  quietly  snubbed  by  the  Great  Powers,  so  called, 
that  adjust  the  affairs  to  suit  their  own  convenience;  and 
yet  when  there  is  an  outbreak  there,  people  say  they  are 
unfit  for  liberty.  They  had  no  outbreak  till  their  rights  as 
a  people  were  trampled  in  the  dust.  King  George  affects 
the  citizen  king,  going  about  in  plain  costume  and  unat- 
tended. If  he  is  equal  to  this  role  he  may  reign  a  few 
years,  because  he  recognizes  the  people  ;  and  he  may  not. 
Whether  he  reigns  long  or  short,  the  inevitable  future  of 
Greece  is  freedom  and  democracy. 

So  is  it  everywhere,  and  everywhere  it  is  taking  more 
and  more  the  threefold  American  form. 

A  revolution  in  favor  of  the  equal  rights  of  all.  This  is 
accomplished  in  Switzerland,  Greece,  Italy.  No  titles  are 
allowed  in  the  first  two  to  any  citizen,  but  few  in  the  last. 
It  is  substantially  so  in  France,  and  becoming  rapidly  so  in 
Poland,  Russia,  and  Germany. 

The  organization  of  these  people  into  States,  electing 
their  rulers,  and  enjoying  local  independence  and  liberty. 

Their  union  into  one  nation. 

The  pronounced  sympathies  show  how  rapidly  this  union 
of  feeling,  antecedent  to  a  union  of  fact,  is  pervading  Europe. 
Huge  Garibaldi  meetings  were  held  in  England,  suppressed 
by  the  government  professedly  out  of  fear  of  the  Irish,  but 
really  out  of  fear  of  the  Ideas.  Like  meetings  assembled  in 


ARISTOCRACY   AND  DEMOCRACY.  465 

behalf  of  Poland,  in  London  and  Paris.  The  leaders  of  the 
same  idea,  in  different  states,  are  beginning  to  see  eye  to 
eye.  Kossuth  works  for  Garibaldi ;  Garibaldi  sends  a  proc- 
lamation to  Hungary  as  he  starts  for  Rome.  Victor  Hugo 
and  Garibaldi  issue  proclamations  to  the  Poles.  Failure 
only  binds  them  closer  together,  and  nerves  their  souls  for 
future  victory.  As  Washington  in  Virginia,  Adams  in  New 
England,  Hamilton  in  New  York,  Franklin  in  Pennsylvania, 
and  Pinckney  in  South  Carolina,  saw  the  absolute  necessity 
of  union  for  success,  so  these  wise  men  are  working  together 
for  one  end.  As  the  kings  conspire  against  their  peoples, 
so  do  these  leaders  of  the  people  breathe  one  breath  against 
their  oppressors, — Union  of  all,  Liberty  for  all. 

Before  this  goal  is  reached,  civil  war  will  doubtless  break 
out  over  the  whole  Continent.  From  Belfast  to  Moscow, 
from  Scotland  to  Greece,  the  uprising  may  be  bloody,  des- 
perate, universal.  England,  the  slowest  of  all  European 
states,  is  rapidly  developing  three  parties  —  the  radical  dem- 
ocrats, radical  monarchists,  and  timid  go-betweens,  whose 
sympathies  incline  them  to  the  former,  and  fears  compel 
them  to  the  latter.  In  a  late  number  of  the  London  Watch- 
man, the  organ  of  the  Wesleyan  Church,  the  whole  subject 
is  summed  up  in  an  article  against  John  Bright.  It  says, 
"  That 'democracy  may  rule  forever,  from  ocean  to  ocean,  is 
a  project  so  precarious,  though  so  vast,  that  no  wonder  Mr. 
Bright's  eyes  can  be  so  dazzled  by  it  as  not  to  perceive  the 
Red  Sea  of  blood  which  is  now  weltering  between.  We 
hope  that  the  honorable  gentleman,  in  the  lack  of  other 
topics,  is  not  about  to  preach  up  republicanism  in  Eng- 
land." 

The  people  of  Great  Britain  will  follow  Bright,  or  any 

other  leader,  through  that  Red  Sea  to  the  Canaan  of  equal 

rights  that  lies  beyond.     The  very  lull  in  English  politics 

which  that  article  notices,  is  precisely  like  that  which  oc- 

30 


466  THE   WORLD   WAR. 

curred  here  as  we  were  approaching1  the  dread  crisis.  The 
questions  of  bank,  tariff,  foreign  population,  and  papal  in- 
fluence, that  had  organized  great  armies  under  their  banners, 
died  out  of  the  public  mind,  and  one  sole  absorbing  theme 
took  their  place.*  Whether  Mr.  Bright  has  the  qualities 
for  the  leadership  in  this  struggle  remains  to  be  seen.  He 
may  be  too  old  and  too  peacefully  educated  for  the  full  de- 
mands of  the  hour.  He  may  be  the  John  Quincy  Adams, 
seeing  and  saying  what  others  will  achieve.  Some  younger 
man,  whom  his  sentiments  shall  inspire,  may  take  up  the 
standard  when  he  pauses,  and  advance  to  death  and  victory. 
When  begun,  whosoever  first  falls  will  be  followed  by  his 
destroyer.  This  lull  can  only  be  changed  by  the  coming 
conflict  between  aristocracy  and  democracy  —  first  with 
voice,  then,  we  fear,  with  arms.  The  late  election  portends 
this  future.  The  voice  of  the  people  was  low,  but  it  was 
clear  ;  never  so  clear  before.  Their  leaders  must  come  to 
this  issue,  or  give  way  to  those  that  will. 

On  the  Continent  is  witnessed  a  like  uprising.  The  king 
and  representatives  of  Prussia  have  been  in  a  permanent 
feud  for  more  than  three  years.  They  are  getting  into 
closer  conflict.  He  is  suppressing  liberty  of  speech,  as  he 
has  the  liberty  of  the  budget.  But  one  issue  can  come 
ultimately  of  the  struggle,  f  Napoleon  and  Paris  are  in 
open  opposition.  Denmark's  late  king  threatened  to  trans- 
form his  kingdom  into  a  republic  on  certain  contingencies. 
Though  he  failed  to  keep  his  promise,  his  people  may  not 
fail  to  remember  it.  They  may  say,  "We  thank  thee,  king, 
for  teaching  us  that  word,"  and  proceed  to  do  for  th'em- 

*  The  excitement  that  has  sprung  up  since,  and  the  center  around 
which  it  revolved,  confirm  these  views.  The  ballot  has  been  extended, 
and  a  long  stride  made  toward  a  democratic  republic  of  Great  Britain. 

f  The  vast  changes  in  Prussia  are  really  the  triumph  of  the  people. 
A  united  Germany  insures  a  German  republic.  Bismarck  discerns  this 
future,  and  is  preparing  the  way  for  it. 


ARISTOCRACY  AND   DEMOCRACY.  467 

selves  what  he  shrank  from  doing  for  them.  The  tongues 
of  fire  leaping  out  of  every  crevice  of  the  tottering  state- 
craft of  Europe,  betoken  an  inextinguishable  conflagration. 
Into  this  war  we  may  be  drawn. 

VII.  The  many  attempts  at  liberation  that  have  been 
made  for  almost  a  century,  have  failed,  for  three  reasons  : 
the  leaders  of  the  people  had  no  concert  of  action,  while 
their  masters  were  in  close  league;  they  had  no  sympathy 
nor  guidance  from  the  Church,  and,  especially,  they  had 
no  nation  to  help  them,  while  many  nations  were  banded 
against  them. 

1.  The  first,  as  we  have  seen,  is  being  changed.    European 
democrats  feel  that  as  their  arms  and  interests  are  one,  so 
must  their  efforts  be.     But  one  barrier  separates  them  — 
language  ;  and  that  is  ceasing  to  be  a  barrier.     Switzerland, 
their  model  in  its  government,  is  their  representative  in  its 
condition.      Italian,    French,    and   German  almost  equally 
divide  their  territory.      Among  the  mottoes  for  a  national 
celebration  at  Neuchatel,  was  this  :   "  Our  enemies  say  we 
speak  so  many  languages  they  cannot  understand  us.     Let 
them  attack  us,   and  they  will  find  that  we  have  but  one 
tongue  —  the  cannon."     So  will  it  be  with  the  people  of 
Europe,     They  will  yet  speak  one  word  —  Liberty  —  with 
one  mouth,  the  cannon,  against  one  foe  —  their  masters,  for 
one  object  —  a  European  republic. 

2.  The  second  cause  of  their  prolonged  failure  lay  in  the 
want  of  sympathy  of  the  Church  with  their  movement.     The 
position  of  the  Church  in  our  Revolution  was  most  valuable. 
"  The   opening  ball  of  the  Revolution,"  John  Adams  pro- 
nounced young  Mayhew's  sermon  on  the  Higher  Law,  that 
he  preached  in  the  West  Church,  Boston,  in  1750,  on  the 
anniversary  of  the  execution  of  Charles  I.  ;  which  the  Pu- 
ritans were  compelled  to  recognize,  but  which  he  turned 
into  an  opportunity  of  defending  the  deed,  and  of  inaugural- 


468  THE   WORLD   WAR. 

ing  our  liberties.  It  took  a  generation  then,  as  it  has  in  our 
present  revolution,  to  develop  the  truths  that  must,  ere 
they  be  perfected,  bear 

"  The  blood-red  blossom  of  war,  with  a  heart  of  fire." 

With  him,  and  after  him  everywhere,  the  clergy  came  to 
the  defense  of  the  great  principles  of  Liberty  and  Indepen- 
dence. 

Not  alike  fortunate  was  European  democracy  in  its  earliest 
conflicts.  The  Church  was  its  chief  adversary.  It  was 
constrained  to  oppose  her  in  its  attempts  to  obtain  its  rights. 
This  wrought  the  scoffing  infidelity  of  Voltaire  and  Rousseau. 
This,  too,  wrought  her  destruction.  An  atheistic  democracy 
was  more  dangerous  to  the  people  than  a  corrupt  and  slavish 
priesthood.  But  to-day  this  powerful  class  are  joining  and 
leading  the  people.  The  dissenting  clergy  of  England  are 
becoming  more  and  more  identified  with  the  political,  as 
they  have  always  been  with  the  religious  principles  of  their 
ancestors,  the  Puritan  ministers  of  the  Commonwealth. 
The  Protestant  clergy  of  France,  by  their  unanimous  letter 
to  us  of  sympathy  and  encouragement,  show  themselves  fit 
to  guide  their  great  nation  in  its  escape  from  the  Giant 
Despair  castle,  where  treachery  and  violence  have  so  long 
chained  and  beat  it.  The  archbishops  of  Greece,  first  of  all 
in  the  public  ballot  signing  their  names  for  a  Protestant 
prince,  while  the  constitution  forbids  any  one  not  of  the 
Orthodox  or  National  Church,  to  ascend  the  throne,  proved 
that  they  are  willing  to  lead  their  people  toward  liberty  at 
the  expense  of  a  wrongful  edict  of  their  constitution.  Eleven 
thousand  Italian  priests  petitioning  the  Pope  to  abrogate  his 
temporal  sovereignty,  proves  that  Garibaldi  has  high  and 
numerous  helpers  in  this  most,  we  might  almost  say  only, 
influential  body  in  that  land.  The  Catholic  and  Protestant 
clergy  of  Hungary  are  largely  identified  with  the  people. 


ARISTOCRACY  AND   DEMOCRACY.  469 

They  refused  greater  privileges  offered  by  the  Austrian  gov- 
ernment than  they  hoped  to  obtain  in  their  own  independent 
action.  Thus  is  the  Church  coming  up  out  of  the  wilder- 
ness, the  leader  aud  benefactor  of  the  people.  Her  con- 
version will  go  forward,  and  insure  to  the  future  European 
republic  a  stable  and  Christian  triumph. 

3.  The  last  defect  we  may  have  to  remedy.  To  save  our- 
selves we  may  be  compelled  to  save  others.  We  shall  then 
be  the  inspiring  and  molding  nation  that  they  have  long 
needed.  As  England  molded  and  inspired  all  Europe  for  a 
quarter  of  a  century  to  resist  and  overthrow  republicanism  in 
Europe  that  she  might  preserve  her  own  aristocratic  institu- 
tions intact,  so  America,  her  grander  daughter,  may  have 
to  guide  those  peoples  in  a  conflict  for  republicanism,  how- 
ever long,  however  costly,  however  bloody.  We  are  the  only 
great  nation  that  represents  the  sovereignty  of  the  people. 
We  may  be  compelled  to  maintain  that  sovereignty  every- 
where with  the  sword.  They  turned  our  neutrality  between 
themselves  and  their  people  into  a  like  neutrality  between 
us  and  our  slave-rnongering  rebels.  They  set  at  naught  a 
compromise  we  made,  not  they,  by  which,  without  their  so- 
licitation, we  abandoned  Europe,  and  declared  this  continent 
should  be  ours.  We  must  abandon  a  vow,  that  we  should 
have  never  made,  to  confine  ourselves  to  this  hemisphere. 
England  is  nearer  than  Mexico,  France  than  South  America. 
We  may  have  to  carry  freedom  there,  in  return  for  their 
attempt  to  bring  slavery  here.  Mr.  Sumner  in  his  speech 
on  our  foreign  relations,  more  than  suggests  this  issue.  He 
describes  the  armed  intervention  of  Cromwell  in  favor  of  the 
Walensians,  in  words  that  glow  with  a  kindred  enthusiasm 
for  the  like  oppressed,  and  struggling,  and  despoiled  Hun- 
garians, Venetians,  and  Romans  of  to-day.  He  says,  — 

"  A  mightier  pen  than  that  of  any  plodding  secretary  was  enlisted  in 
this  pious  intervention.    It  was  John  Milton,  glowing  with  that  indigna- 


470  THE   WORLD  WAR. 

tion  which  his  sonnet  on  the  massacre  in  Piemart  has  made  immortal 
in  the  heart  of  man,  who  wrote  the  magnificent  despatches  in  which  the 
English  nation  of  that  day,  after  declaring  itself  '  linked  together  with  its 
distant  brethren,  not  only  by  the  same  type  of  humanity,  but  by  joint 
communion  of  the  same  religion,'  naturally  and  gloriously  insisted  that 
whatever  had  been  decreed  to  their  disturbance  on  account  of  the  re- 
formed religion  should  be  abrogated,  and  that  an  end  be  put  to  their 
oppressions." 

He  shows  that  Cromwell  was  not  content  with  mere  pro- 
nunciamentos,  but  sought  to  enlist  the  Protestant  powers  in 
their  favor,  and  proceeds,  before  such  a  league  can  be  ef- 
fected, to  intervene  with  arms.  This  martial  display  wrought 
the  desired  end.  Had  it  not,  the  flag  of  St.  George  and  the 
Cross  would  have  waved  in  the  mountains  of  Savoy,  beside 
the  banners  of  persecuted  Protestantism,  for  the  cause  of 
Liberty  of  the  Soul.  Of  this  event,  Mr.  Sumner  makes  the 
following  pregnant  application.  In  his  concluding  passages, 
after  describing  our  relation  as  a  Republic  to  the  European 
monarchies,  he  adds, — 

"  Born  in  this  latter  day,  and  the  child  of  its  own  struggles,  without 
ancestral  claims,  but  heir  of  all  the  ages,  it  will  stand  forth  to  assert 
the  dignity  of  man,  and  wherever  any  member  of  the  human  family  is  to 
be  succored,  there  its  voice  will  reach,  as  the  voice  of  Cromwell  reached 
across  France,  even  to  the  persecuted  mountaineers  of  the  Alps.  Such 
will  be  this  Republic  —  upstart  among  the  nations.  Ay,  as  the  steam- 
engine,  the  telegraph,  and  chloroform  are  upstart.  Comforter  and  helper 
like  these,  it  can  know  no  bounds  to  its  empire  over  a  willing  world." 

Even  if  this  third  element  be  kept  from  the  seething 
caldron  of  European  politics,  so  far  as  armed  intervention  is 
concerned,  the  other  components  will  unceasingly  disturb 
and  ultimately  dissolve  their  thrones.  If  we  refuse  to  hear 
the  cries  of  those  who  are  "  linked  together  with  us  by  the 
same  type  of  humanity  and  by  joint  communion  of  the  same  " 
political  faith,  our  institutions  and  success  will  fight  for 
them. 


ARISTOCRACY   AND   DEMOCRACY.  471 

The  two  ideas  are  abroad  in  the  earth  ;  they  are  wrestling 
for  the  crown  of  the  world.  Democracy  has  clothed  itself 
with  continental  thunders,  is  regnant  in  a  mighty  state.  The 
world  is  too  small  for  two  such  hostile  systems  to  hold  equal 
sovereignty.  All  peoples  are  fast  becoming  one  people. 
They  can  have  but  one  system  of  government.  It  must  be 
that  of  themselves.  We  are  its  divinely  appointed  rep- 
resentatives and  defenders.  We  may  be  its  divinely  armed 
and  appointed  propagandists. 

Such  is  the  clear,  unanswerable  logic  of  principles,  the 
necessary  precursor  of  the  more  evident  but  not  more  certain 
logic  of  events.  Our  propositions  are  stronger  than  Euclid's. 
They  are  the  mathematics  of  humanity,  of  morals,  of  the 
Spirit  of  God. 

Thus  stand  the  relations,  past,  present,  and  future,  of  Amer- 
ica to  Europe,  its  kings  and  its  peoples.  The  first  century 
of  our  nationality  is  rapidly  concluding.  It  is  a  century  of 
greater  progress  in  political  thought  and  life  than  any,  in 
some  respects,  than  all  its  predecessors.  In  all  this  activity 
America  is  foremost.  She  is  a  sign  that  is  spoken  against. 
Yea,  a  sword  has  pierced  through  her  own  soul  also,  that  the 
thoughts  of  mafcy  hearts,  at  home  and  abroad,  may  be  re- 
vealed. Many  states  have  already  risen,  and  fallen,  and 
risen  again  under  her  involuntary  influence.  That  influence 
is  but  just  begun.  If  she  casts  off  the  grevious  sin  that  has 
beset  her,  if  she  humbles  herself  before  her  God  and  Savior, 
if  she  carries  out  faithfully  her  own  principles  of  equality 
and  fraternity  through  all  her  social  and  civil  life,  ignoring 
distinctions  of  color  as  she  does  those  of  language  and 
birthplace,  she  will  stand  forth,  under  Christ,  the  redeemer 
and  mistress  of  the  world.  The  enslaved  of  Europe  will  hail 
her  midday  glory  with  greater  acclamations  than  they  have 
her  dawning  beauty.  They  will  struggle  the  more  fiercely  in 
their  chains.  They  will  snap  them  asunder.  We  are  set 


472  THE  WORLD  WAR. 

for  the  fall  of  tyrants  and  the  rising  of  the  nations.  Our  in- 
fluence will  not  be  confined  to  this  continent,  but  will  renew 
and  unite  the  world.  The  nations  that  have  so  long  sat  in 
darkness,  and  have  now  seen  the  great  light,  will  come  to 
that  light,  and  kings  to  the  brightness  of  its  rising.  Thus 
and  then  will  wars  cease  to  the  end  of  the  earth,  the  mil- 
lennial glory  rest  upon  the  world-republic,  and  universal 
liberty,  equality,  and  brotherhood  bring  universal  peace. 


THE    END    NEAK.* 


"  THE  MORNING  COMETH."  —  Isaiah  xxi.  12. 

"  THROUGH   THE   TENDER  MERCY  OF   OUR  GOD,  WHEREBY  THE  DAY- 
SPRING  FROM    ON   HIGH   HATH   VISITED   US." — Luke  L  78. 

FTER  a  long,  long  night  of  clouds,  and  darkness, 
and  storm,  thunderings,  and  lightnings,  and  tem- 
pests of  blood,  with  faint  gleamings  of  the  muf- 
fled stars  at  times,  to  show  us  that  the  heavens 
still  abide,  yet  with  no  grayness  even  betokening  the  actual 
dawn,  suddenly  we  see  the  "  King  of  Day  rejoicing  in  the 
East."  The  shadows  flee,  the  golden  glory  covers  the  hori- 
zon, and  shoots  its  radiance  across  the  whole  heavens.  Even 
the  blindest  bats  of  night,  that  beat  their  leathery  wings 
and  eyeless  heads  against  the  walls  of  the  national  temple, 
confess  that  something  bright  and  beautiful  is  stealing  over 
their  feeble  senses.  They  know  not  what  it  means  or  is. 
For  they  have  torn  out  their  eyes  with  their  own  claws. 
They  feel  a  warmth,  a  sunniness,  pervading  their  spirits, 
that  compels  their  unwilling  recognition  of  the  coming  day: 
But  these  poor,  darkened  creatures  apart,  the  people  see 

*  A  sermon  preached  in  Boston  on  the  day  of  National  Thanksgiving 
for  General  Sherman's  capture  of  Atlanta,  September  11,  18G4. 

(473) 


474  THE  END  NEAR. 

the  light,  and  rejoice  in  it,  and  hasten  to  the  brightness  of 
its  rising.  Most  true  in  this  case  was  the  familiar  saying 
verified  —  the  darkest  hour  is  just  before  day.  Last  July 
and  August  were  probably  the  gloomiest  months  since  the 
night  of  war  closed  us  in.  Our  armies  lay  in  their  trenches 
while  marauding  bands  vexed  their  rear.  Our  mines  ex- 
ploded only  to  our  loss  and  not  the  enemy's.  The  North  was 
invaded,  and  triumphantly  trampled  by  robbing  feet.  For 
the  first  time  since  the  war  the  enemy  cut  off  our  commu- 
nications with  the  capital,  and  defiantly  approached  its  very 
gates.  Our  villages  were  sacked  and  burned  to  the  ground. 
Gold  leaped  up  to  three  hundred.  Provisions  and  wares 
followed  at  a  yet  swifter  pace.  The  earth  burned  like  an 
oven.  Nature,  too,  lay  sick  with  a  fever,  and  seemed  to 
be  dying  with  the  dying  nation.  And,  as  a  fitting  crown  of 
all  the  calamities,  thousands  upon  thousands  of  traitors,  a 
generation  of  vipers,  "  a  coil  voluminous  and  vast,"  assem- 
bled in  one  of  our  greatest  cities,  the  especial  symbol  and 
proof  of  the  magnificent  workings  of  our  free  institutions, 
on  the  birthday  of  our  first  great  traitor,  Benedict  Arnold, 
great,  but  far  less  than  these  his  children,  and  there  under 
the  guidance  of  men  who  had  been  openly  consulting  with 
our  open  foes  for  months  before,  with  jubilant  and  hopeful 
hearts,  plotted  the  dismemberment,  the  reenslavement  of 
the  nation  —  nay,  not  plotted,  boldly  exulted  in  her  ruin.* 
Through  the  words  of  one  who  had  once  been  placed  by 
the  nation  in  its  highest  seat,  they  defied  the  government 
to  prevent  traitors  from  seizing  and  controlling  the  polls, 
declared  the  only  rebellion  in  the  land  to  be  that  of  the 
rulers  against  the  people,  spoke  no  word  of  reprobation 
against  those  who  for  more  than  three  years  have  struck 
terrific  blows  at  thte  national  life,  and  but  for  God's  right 
arm  would  have  long  since  cast  it  as  dead  among  the  nations 
as  Egypt  or  Korne.  Such  was  the  dreadful  record  of  those 

*  The  Chicago  Democratic  Presidential  Convention. 


THE  CAPTURE  OF  ATLANTA.          475 

burning  months  ;  drouth  in  the  heavens  and  on  the  earth, 
the  war  hanging  dubious,  weakness  in  the  hearts  of  the 
people,  and  treason  stalking  boldly  through  all  the  land. 

"  The  red-ribbed  ledges  dripped  with  a  silent  horror  of  blood; 
Echo,  whatever  was  asked  her,  answered,  '  Death.' " 

Yet,  lo  !  almost  in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye,  the  scene 
changes.  The  heavy  clouds  not  only  seemed  to  shut  out 
the  day,  but  to  proclaim  an  everlasting  night  —  the  night 
of  death  and  national  destruction.  Beasts  of  prey  roamed 
everywhere  through  our  land.  Their  hideous  howls  af- 
frighted our  ears.  Across  the  continent  rolled  their  can- 
non. The  grave  yawned,  and  multitudes  of  ghosts  of  cow- 
ards and  traitors  went  gibbering  through  the  streets. 

And  now  we  cry,  the  morning  cometh  !  —  the  blessed 
morning  of  peace  and  liberty  !  It  is  really  breaking.  These 
are  no  cold,  deceitful,  auroral  beams  betokening  a  deepening 
winter.  They  are  the  true  dayspring.  The  Dayspring  from 
on  high  is  visiting  us.  The  present  Thanksgiving  Procla- 
mation of  the  President  has  a  more  confident  and  cheerful 
tone  than  any  of  its  predecessors.  He  penetrates  the 
dread  entangled  forest.  This  valley  of  the  shadow  of  death, 
with  its  fiery,  flying  serpents  hissing  and  stinging,  with  its 
darkness,  and  storms,  and  desolation,  its  groans  and  death, 
—  how  dark,  how  woful,  how  deadly  ;  he  can  almost  see 
through  it.  Dangers  yet  stand  as  thick  around  him  as  ser- 
ried soldiers,  but  a  glimmering  comes  through  the  strait 
and  narrow  way  that  he  is  steadfastly  pursuing,  which  be- 
speaks a  blue  sky,  peaceful  fields,  and  the  light  of  heaven. 

With  these  encouragements  we  are  invited  to  assemble 
in  our  respective  places  of  worship,  and  offer  thanksgiving 
to  God  for  His  mercy  in  preserving  our  national  existence 
against  the  insurgent  rebels,  who  have  been  waging  a  civil 
war  against  the  government  of  the  United  States  for  its 
overthrow.  And  surely  no  locality  is  more  worthy  of  our 


476  THE   END   NEAK. 

assemblage  than  this.  We  are  within  a  few  rods  of  the 
spot  where  John  Adams  declared  that  the  opening  gun  of 
the  Revolution  was  fired.  Where  a  young  minister,  in  a 
city  subject  to  a  foreign  power,  and  with  all  its  wealth, 
office,  and  influence  supporting  that  power,  dared  to  preach 
a  sermon  on  the  Higher  Law,  defying  that  power  in  the 
name  of  his  God,  and  first  starting  in  the  mind  of  this  city 
the  doctrine  of  Independence.  To  the  same  mind  was  due 
the  other  focus  of  our  orbit,  —  the  body  of  which  Indepen- 
dence was  the  soul,  —  Union.  Both  came  from  one  brain, 
and  his  a  minister's.  For  while  meditating  upon  the  discon- 
nected, and  hence  useless  efforts,  of  the  patriots  of  Massa- 
chusetts and  Virginia,  New  York  and  South  Carolina,  as  he 
was  preparing  to  go  to  an  association  of  ministers,  he 
thought,  Why  not  have  such  an  association  of  patriots  ?  why 
not  of  provinces  ?  He  instantly  wrote  his  thought  to  John 
Adams,  and  the  Union  then  first  began  to  be.  With  such 
auspices  hanging  over  us,  we  cannot  be  untimely  in  con- 
sidering the  great,  duties  of  the  hour  as  Christians,  as 
men. 

But  what  proof  have  you,  some  half-hearted,  perhaps 
some  over-cautious  soul  may  say,  that  the  night  is  far  spent? 
Are  not  the  rebels  yet  firm  and  undaunted  ?  Are  they  not 
armed,  and  organized,  and  active  ?  Have  they  not  posses- 
sion of  their  original  capital  ?  Do  they  not  yet  rule  in 
Charleston  ?  What  are  your  signs  of  promise  ?  Let  us 
put  them  into  one  bird's-eye  view. 

Suppose  Jefferson  Davis  had  been  able  to  carry  out  his 
boasted  threat  at  Montgomery  before  the  opening  of  the 
war  —  that  if  war  should  come  from  secession,  it  was  the 
North  and  not  the  South  should  be  its  theatre;  we  "should 
smell  Southern  powder  and  feel  Southern  steel."  Suppose 
that  in  carrying  out  this  threat  New  York  had  been  taken 


THE  CAPTURE  OF  ATLANTA.         477 

by  his  armies  within  a  year  after  that  time,  and  had  been 
kept  in  their  grasp  firmly  to  this  hour,  while  two  South 
Carolina  generals  had  been  its  actual  governors  ;  suppose 
the  Mississippi  had  been  opened  to  its  fountain,  and  St. 
Louis,  and  all  the  cities  were  in  their  hands  ;  suppose  an 
army  had  penetrated  into  New  England,  and  secured  Spring- 
field, the  center  of  our  railroads,  and  the  chief  depot  of  our 
military  stores,  and  had  annihilated,  by  the  same  act,  the 
last  but  one  of  our  great  armies  ;  suppose  that  every  one 
of  our  seaports  was  captured  or  invested,  leaving  only  New 
London  as  a  place  where  we  could  smuggle  in  a  few  of  the 
necessary  supplies  for  our  army  and  our  people  ;  suppose 
that  Boston  was  half  burned,  —  Fort  Warren  a  chaotic  mass 
of  brick  and  stone,  —  the  lower  half  of  this  city,  including 
its  shipping,  warehouses,  and  stores,  up  even  to  Tre- 
mont  Street,  all  in  ashes  and  abandoned,  and  that  daily  in 
our  more  retired  portions"  the  deadly  shell  should  drop  from 
the  enemy's  vessels  which  filled  the  outer  harbor  ;  suppose 
that  gold  had  long  since  ceased  to  be  an  article  of  trade, 
and  that  our  greenbacks  had  become  so  worthless  that  it 
took  eight  hundred  dollars  of  them  to  buy  a  barrel  of  flour ; 
suppose  that  Washington  had  been  held  in  close  siege  for 
four  months  ;  that  Lee  had  earned  out  his  contemplated 
invasion  of  the  North  last  spring  ;  that  on  May  last  he  had 
drawn  Grant  back  from  Fredericksburg,  from  Culpepper, 
from  Manassas,  and  had  thrown  his  troops  around  the  south, 
and  east,  and  north  of  the  city,  leaving  only  the  west  open ; 
suppose  that  he  had  clung  to  this  position  ever  since  the 
middle  of  May,  now  throwing  himself  on  one  side  of  the 
Potomac  and  now  the  other,  and,  at  last,  by  a  sudden  move- 
ment, had  got  possession  of  the  Baltimore  Railroad,  from 
which  assaults  after  assaults  on  our  part  were  unable  to  dis- 
lodge him  ;  suppose  that  provisions  had  risen  in  that  city 
to  famine  prices,  and  even  then  our  people,  and  our  soldiers 
too,  had  scarcely  nothing  to  eat :  should  we  not  think  our 


478  THE   END  NEAR. 

end  was  near?  Should  we  not  prepare  to  accept  any  terms 
our  victors  might  demand  ?  This  is  an  exact  picture  of 
the  rebellion  to-day.  Its  state  is  even  worse  than  this. 
Three  of  their  States  are  supporting  the  administration 
through  military  governments  —  Tennessee,  Arkansas,  and 
Louisiana.  Only  Eastern  Virginia  and  the  Carolinas  are 
able  to  retain  any  efficient  hold  upon  their  peoples. 

If  every  north-west  State  was  thus  ruled  by  military  gov- 
ernors of  the  confederacy  ;  if  Pennsylvania  and  half  of  New 
York  were  theirs ;  if  only  Massachusetts,  eastern  New  York, 
and  the  State  between  were  ours,  the  parallel  would  be 
complete.  Study  your  map,  and  your  faith  and  patriotism 
will  have  free  course  and  be  glorified. 

But  if  the  night  be  so  far  spent,  what  is  our  duty  ? 

1.  Not  to  desert  our  posts.  The  morning  is  coming,  but 
is  not  come.  Should  the  watchmen  engaged  in  protecting 
your  houses  and  stores  desert  their  posts  at  the  first  gray 
glimpse  of  dawn,  your  city  would  instantly  swarm  with 
thieves  and  murderers.  They  would  rush  out  from  their 
dens  and  coverts,  whither  they  had  been  driven  by  your  pro- 
tectors, and  lay  waste  and  destroy.  So  if  we  slacken  our 
arm,  if  we  withdraw  our  troops,  if,  as  some  traitorously 
advise,  we  throw  open  our  doors  to  their  murderous  feet, 
instantly  they  would  swarm  from  every  hole  in  the  South 
where  they  are  now  shut  up.  They  would  rush  to  the  Po- 
tomac. They  would  slay  every  Union  man,  white  and  black, 
in  that  whole  region.  They  would  open  their  ports  to  for- 
eign emissaries  and  associates.  They  would  assume  their 
old  defiant  attitude  with  yet  greater  defiance,  while  we, 
craven  of  spirit,  would  hide  ourselves  from  them,  as  we 
should  from  armed  rioters,  if  they  had  possession  of  this 
city. 

No,  the  only  duty  is  to  fight  it  out  on  this  line,  if  it  takes 
the  whole  century.  There  is  no  release  in  this  war  except 
by  the  death  of  its  cause.  There  should  be  no  relaxing  of 


THE  CAPTURE  OF  ATLANTA.          479 

our  efforts  to  compel  their  complete  subjugation.  The  army 
should  overflow  with  soldiers.  The  exhausted  fighters, 
through  this  long,  long  night,  should  be  encouraged  by  the 
faces  of  their  friends  thronging  to  their  support.  The  young 
men,  untrammeled  by  family  cares  and  duties,  should  fly  to 
the  field.  When  Burgoyne  seemed  almost  in  the  net  which 
Schuyler,  and  afterwards  Gates,  had  prepared  for  him,  he 
was  intrapped  only  by  the  multitudes  that  flocked  to  their 
banners.  So  when  their  last  great  army  is  penned  up  in 
its  first  stronghold,  everybody  that  can  leave  his  home  and 
handle  a  musket  should  swell  the  heroic  ranks,  and  see  this 
huge,  amorphous  sin  die  its  eternal  death. 

2.  But  our  duty  is  also  to  support  the  government 
with  our  voice  and  vote  at  home.  Every  presidential  elec- 
tion is  important,  but  none  has  been  so  important  as  this. 
It  was  vastly  important  that  the  gigantic  slave  power  should 
be  opposed  by  the  people  ;  that  the  great  national  uprising 
should  be  indeed  an  uprising,  not  a  mere  rolling  over  in  sin- 
ful and  slavish  slumber.  Therefore  all  the  preliminary  con- 
tests for  liberty  for  twenty  years  were  vital.  It  was  vital 
that  Birney  should  be  nominated  and  voted  for  in  1840. 
Unless  the  child  was  born,  it  could  never  become  the  strong 
man.  Unless  the  sentiment  against  slavery  had  condensed 
itself  into  political  form  then,  it  might  not  have  conquered 
yet.  For  four  presidential  canvasses  it  was  the  subject  of 
insult,  of  scorn,  of  neglect,  and  in  the  minds  of  few  wise 
enemies,  of  fear.  Said  John  C.  Calhoun,  "  While  aboli- 
tionism contents  itself  with  talking,  we  are  in  no  danger  ; 
when  it  begins  to  vote,  we  are  dead."  Yet  not  till  1856, 
till  arrogance  after  arrogance  had  been  successfully  exhib- 
ited by  the  slave  power,  till  the  right  of  petition  in  Con- 
gress, freedom  of  the  mails,  rights  of  citizens  in  Southern 
ports,  rights  of  pleadings  of  State  against  State  in  the 
Supreme  Courts,  the  freedom  of  territory  north  of  36°  30' 
beyond  -the  Mississippi,  the  right  of  fugitives  from  slavery 


480  THE   END   NEAK. 

to  their  liberty,  the  rights  of  any  man  of  any  portion  of 
African  descent  in  the  courts  of  the  nation,  had  been  all 
stricken  down,  a  foreign  state  invaded  and  dismembered  in 
the  interests  of  slavery,  members  of  Congress  smitten  for 
declaiming  against  the  monster,  a  war  waged  with  all  the 
powers  of  the  government  for  the  subjugation  of  liberty  in 
Kansas ;  not  until  these  assaults  on  the  national  ideas  and 
life  had  been  committed  could  the  people  be  sufficiently 
aroused  to  see  their  sin  and  their  danger,  and  to  de- 
clare their  purpose  to  return  to  the  old  paths.  Even  then 
they  failed  to  see  it.  Many  honest  men  hoped  for  other 
ways  of  escape  than  by  confronting  in  battle  of  leagued  and 
banded  States. 

Another  four  years  in  the  wilderness  and  Canaan  was 
reached,  the  Jordan  crossed,  and  the  tribes  of  God  in  pos- 
session of  His  inheritance.  Then  came  the  long  and  bloody 
struggle,  as  with  them  after  the  passage  of  the  Jordan. 
Pour  years  of  war  and  we  appear  again  in  our  tribes  to 
choose  our  ruler.  Some  say,  "  Enough  of  war  !  Let  us 
make  peace  with  the  rebels.  Any  peace  that  will  insure 
Union,  or  that  will  not."  Joshua  and  his  lieutenants  are 
objects  of  unspeakable  abuse.  What  shall  the  people  do  ? 
Shall  they  elect  a  chieftain  who  will  make  terms  with  the 
idolatrous  Canaanites,  whereby  one  half  of  the  territory 
wrested  from  them  shall  be  restored  to  their  control  ?  Shall 
we  give  up  Jericho,  so  miraculously  conferred  upon  us,  or 
Ai,  for  which  we  so  bloodily  contended,  or  Bethoron,  down 
whose  steeps  we  pursued  the  hostile  chiefs  in  rout  and 
ruin,  while  God  held  the  light  for  us  in  the  heavens  to 
enable  us  to  complete  the  work  ?  Shall  we  restore  the 
Gibeonites,  to  whom  we  have  made  solemn  pledges,  into  the 
hands  of  their  enemies,  who  will  reduce  them  to  bondage, 
and  waste  them  with  furious  slaughter?  "0,  yes.  Depose 
Joshua,  and  elect  some  one  of  those  who  cowardly  advised 
against  taking  possession  of  the  land.  Depose  him,  and 


THE  CAPTURE  OF  ATLANTA.         481 

appoint  one  who  shall  secure  for  us  a  dishonorable  peace 
and  an  everlasting  war." 

In  such  a  crisis  every  lover  of  God  and  his  country  has 
but  one  duty  to  do.  He  must  stand  by  Joshua.  Treason 
in  the  camp  is  as  fatal  as  the  foe  on  the  field.  He  must 
bear  aloft  the  banner  of  liberty  and  righteousness,  unfurled 
twenty-four  years  ago,  and  never  to  be  laid  up  till  the  vic- 
tory is  entirely  won. 

Some  object  to  the  political  canvass  at  such  an  hour. 
Yet  it  has  its  advantages.  It  allows  the  country  to  say 
whether  it  has  confidence  in  its  own  principles  and  purposes. 
Had  the  vote  been  taken  in  this  nation  in  1719,  at  the  darkest 
moment  in  our  history,  after  three  years  of  almost  unsuc- 
cessful war,  whether  George  Washington  should  still  head 
the  armies  of  the  republic,  and  John  Adams  its  Congress, 
it  would  have  encouraged  them  more  than  a  score  of  victo- 
ries, and  paralyzed  the  arm  of  their  oppressors  more  than  a 
hundred  defeats,  to  have  had  the  people,  by  an  immense 
majority,  declare  their  purpose  to  support  their  heroic  lead- 
ers unto  the  end.  So  will  it  inspire  our  soldiers  with  fresh 
courage,  stagger  our  enemies  more  than  the  loss  of  ten 
Atlantas,  and  cause  the  whole  world  to  settle  down  into 
the  conviction  of  the  intense  earnestness  of  the  American 
people,  if  we  reelect  our  leader  to  the  seat  he  has  so  ably 
filled. 

The  Church  should  unite  as  one  man  in  this  exigency. 
Prayers  should  go  up  daily  for  success  in  this  election. 
Her  salvation  depends  upon  her  faithfulness.  She  has  had 
much  to  do  with  this  revival  of  pure  and  undefiled  religion. 
From  the  beginning  her  children  have  been  found  fighting 
for  the  cause  of  liberty  and  of  man.  She  did  more  to  de- 
velop the  sentiment  that  was  crowned  in  the  elections  of 
1860  than  all  other  influences  combined.  The  great  revival 
was  a  fitting  and  necessary  prelude  to  that  great  election. 
Let  her  continue  faithful  and  the  work  is  done.  Let  her 
31 


482  THE  END   NEAR. 

once  more  march  to  the  ballot-box,  an  army  of  Christ,  with 
the  banners  of  the  Cross,  and  deposit,  as  she  can,  a  million 
of  votes  for  her  true  representative,  and  she  will  give  the 
last  blow  to  the  reeling1  fiend  ;  she  will  keep,  where  she 
belongs,  in  the  fore  front  of  the  nation  in  civil  and  social 
righteousness  ;  she  will  be  stronger  to  assail  the  fortress  of 
religious  error,  and  to  effect  the  renewal  of  the  land  in 
holiness. 

If  she  refuses  this  duty,  if  she  listens  to  the  siren  voice 
of  a  seductive  but  fatal  peace,  if  she  is  beguiled  from  her 
steadfastness  by  those  who  hate  her  with  an  unblushing  and 
ferocious  hatred,  who  in  every  bar-room  and  gambling  hole 
throughout  the  land  to-day  are  heaping  upon  her  all  manner 
of  curses  and  revilings  because  she  is  true  to  the  cause  of 
God  and  man  —  if  she  shall  league  with  these,  her  fate  is 
sealed.  She  goes  down,  with  Jerusalem  of  old,  into  dust  and 
desolation.  Her  enemies  mock  at  her,  crucify  her,  kill  her, 
and  God  will  grant  her  no  resurrection.  The  Church  must 
do  her  duty  in  this  hour,  and  that  duty  is,  by  every  righteous 
means  in  her  power  to  secure  the  reelection  of  Abraham 
Lincoln. 

3.  But  a  third  duty  of  the  hour  is,  to  maintain  the  whole 
truth  as  to  the  questions  at  issue  in  this  conflict.  The 
morning  cometh,  but  a  higher  morning  is  also  breaking  upon 
the  land.  When  the  women  were  hastening  to  Christ's 
sepulcher  on  the  morning  of  His  resurrection  there  was  a 
rosy  flush  upon  the  Mount  of  Olives.  How  gay  and  glad 
danced  the  flames  upon  the  distant  hills  of  Moab  !  How 
bright  the  face  of  Nature  !  Trees  were  rustling  in  their  new 
spring  robes,  flowers  were  pouring  forth  their  fragrance  on 
the  balmy  air,  birds  were  filling  the  sky  with  their  matin 
music.  They,  perhaps,  felt  that  the  outward  glory  did  not 
well  conform  with  the  inner  darkness.  The  sun  should  still 
be  darkened.  It  should  rise  every  day  in  the  garments  of 


THE  CAPTURE  OF  ATLANTA.          483 

mourning  which  it  assumed  in  those  dread  hours  of  the 
previous  Friday.  But  when  they  come  to  the  sepulcher 
and  find  the  stone  rolled  away,  and  the  Savior  arisen,  they 
see  with  their  souls'  eyes  why  the  sun  seems  to  dance  in 
the  heavens,  and  the  birds  emulate  the  angelic  chorus,  and 
trees  drop  balm,  while 

"  Flowers  laugh  before  them  in  their  beds 
And  fragrance  in  their  footing  tre'ads." 

Another  morn  had  broke  upon  the  world,  a  divine,  eternal 
morn,  of  which  this  earthly  and  perishable  one  was  but  a 
feeble  emblem. 

So  if  we  will  lift  up  our  eyes  we  shall  behold  another 
morning  breaking  on  the  land.  The  Dayspring  from  on 
high  is  visiting  us.  Peace  comes  with  healing  on  her  wings. 
There  might  have  been  a  peace  full  of  infamy,  full  of  calam- 
ity, a  peace  that  came  from  cowardice,  that  created  disunion, 
that  was  sure  to  be  the  fruitful  parent  of  unceasing  war. 
Not  such  shall  we  see  if  faithful  to  the  new  sun  that  is  now 
arising.  This  day  began  to  dawn  more  than  two  years  ago. 
When  the  President,  in  March,  1862,  issued  a  proclamation 
to  the  Border  States,  urging  them  to  abolish  slavery  with 
national  compensation,  and  informed  them  that  in  case  they 
did  not,  its  abolishment  might  come  from  another  quarter, 
then  the  day  began  to  break  ;  that  was  the  first'  gray  ray 
which  pierced  the  involving  dark.  When  six  months  later 
he  announced  emancipation  in  all  the  rebellious  region,  if, 
after  three  months'  warning,  they  did  not  return  to  their 
allegiance,  the  grayness  became  golden.  The  east  was 
ruddy  with  the  rushing  dawn.  And  when,  on  January  1, 
1863,  he  proclaimed  their  liberty  in  all  the  land,  and  re- 
quired the  army  to  welcome  them  as  such,  the  first  segment 
of  the  solid  globe  of  fire  appeared  above  the  horizon.  The 
enrolling  and  arming  of  the  slave,  the  abolishment  of  in- 


484  THE   END   NEAR. 

vidious  distinctions  of  color  in  courts  and  cars,  are  further 
evidences  that  a  true  and  glorious  day  is  breaking  ;  a  day 
that  no  night  shall  follow,  and  in  which  peace  shall 
be  one  with  brotherhood  ;  in  which  true  democracy,  the 
rights  and  fraternity  of  all  men,  shall  be  universally  recog- 
nized and  practiced.  When  there  shall  be  no  school  to 
prepare  white  men  to  rule  colored  regiments,  but  such  regi- 
ments shall  be  abolished,  and  men,  without  distinction  of 
color,  rule  and  serve  in  all  the  armies  of  the  republic  ;  when 
there  shall  be  no  white  nor  colored  churches,  but  all  in  Christ 
shall  be  one  in  Christ. 

This  morning  is  dawning.  Thanks  be  to  God.  This  is 
more  than  the  victory  of  Farragut  and  Sherman.  Far 
greater  is  he  that  conquereth  his  own  spirit  than  he  that 
taketh  a  city.  If  the  nation  shall  conquer  its  own  proud, 
rebellious,  unbrotherly  spirit,  it  will  do  a  far  greater  work 
for  God  and  man  than  if  it  should  annihilate  every  hostile 
power  in  the  world.  We  know  that  work  is  the  most  dif- 
ficult. Let  us  address  ourselves  to  it,  therefore,  the  most 
diligently. 

While  we  do  the  first  and  second  works,  supporting  the 
army  and  the  government,  let  us  not  leave  this  undone. 

Let  us  labor  and  pray  that  the  only  divine  morning  may 
indeed  come.  Our  fathers  had  a  rosy  peace,  but  it  was  only 
for  an  earthly  day.  We  found  twilight  fast  gathering  over 
it  when  this  generation  appeared'  on  the  stage  of  action.  That 
disastrous  twilight  deepened  into  night  —  a  night  of  storm 
and  darkness  ;  a  night  like  that  in  Egypt,  in  which  every 
household  has  sent  forth  exceeding  great  and  bitter  cries,  for 
in  every  house  has  been  one  dead.  We  are  emerging  again 
into  day.  Shall  it  be  like  the  other,  a  day  of  earth,  stormy  and 
brief?  or  shall  it  be  a  day  of  heaven,  calm  and  eternal  ?  That 
depends  entirely  on  our  faithfulness  to  the  principles  of  God 
and  His  Gospel.  Mr.  Seward  declares  that  if  peace  comes, 


THE   CAPTURE   OF  ATLANTA.  485 

slavery,  as  well  as  all  other  questions,  must  adjust  them- 
selves to  that  basis.  If  by  this  he  means  that  this  nation  is 
not  to  uproot  slavery,  and  caste,  its  tap-root,  then  will  our 
peace  be  brief  and  worthless.  If  by  it  he  means  that  these 
duties  must  go  forward  under  the  new  conditions,  it  is  well, 
but  go  forward  they  must,  or  we  go  backward.  Our  fathers 
made  much  more  rapid  progress  in  the  storms  of  the  Revolu- 
tion than  in  the  peace  that  followed.  We  must  beware  that 
our  morning  is  not  darker  than  our  night.  Fearful  as  that 
has  been,  the  eye  of  God  has  shone  upon  us,  as  it  did  upon 
the  Israelites  in  the  tempest's  gloom  and  destruction  of  the 
Red  Sea.  We  have 

"  Touched  God's  right  hand  in  the  darkness, 
And  been  lifted  up  and  strengthened." 

Go  forward  in  that  strength.  Cleanse  yourselves,  and 
prepare  for  the  duties  of  the  coming  day.  The  light  is  not 
given  as  a  luxury,  not  for  idle  saunterings,  but  for  labor. 
Man  goeth  forth  to  his  work  when  the  sun  comes  out  of 
his  chambers.  We  have  a  great  and  glorious  work  to  do. 
We  have  our  land  to  cleanse  from  its  sins,  to  deliver  from 
its  enemies,  to  make  the  glory  of  all  lands.  We  must 
educate  this  people  so  that  all  nations  may  seek  after  the 
same  likeness  and  image.  We  must  take  the  foreigners,  who 
are  rushing  by  thousands,  and  will  by  tens  of  thousands,  to 
our  shores,  and  inspire  them  with  the  gospel  of  truth  and 
brotherhood. 

The  war  draws  near  its  end.  In  forty  days,  we  might 
almost  say,  and  Richmond  shall  be  overthrown.  With  her 
vanishes  the  last  rebellious  army  from  the  field,  and  the  last 
hope  from  their  breast.  As  Lord  North,  when  tidings  were 
brought  to  him  of  the  capture  of  Cornwallis,  threw  up  his 
arms  as  though  a  bullet  had  pierced  his  breast,  and  pacing 
up  and  down  his  apartments,  exclaimed  wildly,  "  0  God,  it 


486  THE   END   NEAR. 

is  all  over!"  thus  will  the  grand  instigator  of  this  unlaw- 
ful war  cry  out  as  he  flees  from  his  proud  citadel  to  hide 
his  dishonored  head  when  the  conquering  armies  of  Union 
and  Liberty  shall  enter  Richmond. 

See  to  it  that  the  third  word  is  added,  —  Fraternity,  —  or, 
as  sure  as  there  is  a  God  in  heaven,  there  will  be  another  war 
in  America;  a  war  more  fierce,  more  bloody,  more  fatal  than 
this  —  a  war  of  races  and  of  extermination.  Justice  and 
brotherly  kindness  can  alone  prevent  this  sun  from  going 
down.  They  can.  Let  us  so  live  and  labor  that  the  peace 
and  the  nation  shall  be  perpetual,  universal,  celestial. 

It  may  seem  improper  to  prognosticate  evil  when  the 
good  is  breaking  upon  us,  but  truth  is  truth.  Our  fathers 
would  have  cried  out  at  him  who,  on  the  day  of  Thanksgiv- 
ing for  the  capture  of  Yorktown,  had  declared  that  unless 
they  abolished  slavery  there  would  come  upon. their  children 
a  fiercer  war  than  the  one  from  whose  red  waves  they  saw 
themselves  emerging.  And  yet  he  would  have  told  them 
the  truth.  Liberty  for  all  has  had  to  be  purchased  at  a 
great  price,  because  they  would  not  then  bestow  it  freely 
upon  all.  So  our  war  has  established  universal  liberty.  I 
have  not  the  least  doubt  that  slavery,  under  no  subterfuge 
of  compromise  and  complicity,  can  long  live.  Should  the 
rebels  succeed,  should  Mr.  Lincoln  be  defeated,  slavery 
must  die.  But  Fraternity,  the  oneness  of  man,  is  yet  an 
unsolved  problem  in  this  land.  Our  hearts  still  hate  our 
brothers  —  still  we  thrust  them  from  our  arms.  We  have 
not  half  completed  this  work  of  regeneration.  We  have 
hardly  begun  it. 

It  must  be  begun,  it  must  be  completed,  or  a  future  war 
grows  out  of  the  seeds  of  an  imperfect  peace.  We  must 
conquer  our  prejudices,  or  God  will  again  cast  us  into  weak- 
ness and  agony.  Be  assured  that  this  word  is  of  God.  It 
is  written  on  every  page  of  His  Bible,  on  every  page  of 


THE  CAPTURE  OF  ATLANTA.          487 

history,  on  every  promise  of  the  future.  Man  can  exist  on 
the  earth  happily,  righteously,  divinely,  only  as  one.  Five 
millions  of  our  brethren  held  insoluble  amid  thirty  or  one 
hundred  millions,  can  only  disturb,  and,  unless  cured,  will 
destroy  the  body  politic.  They  must  be  treated  without 
special  consideration  or  contempt ;  without  special  exclu- 
sion or  inclusion.  The  sons  of  the  first  parent  differed  : 
the.  older  despised  the  younger,  and  hence  death  and  dis- 
union to  this  hour.  We  must  go  back  to  Eden.  We  must 
say,  and  show  it  as  a  natural  trait,  — 

"  That  every  person  who  shall  lift  again 
His  tongue  against  his  brother,  on  his  forehead 
Shall  wear  forevermore  the  curse  of  Cain." 

Gird  on,  then,  the  armor  for  God  and  your  Country  —  for 
Liberty,  and  Union,  and  Fraternity.  The  day  breaks,  the 
shadows  flee.  Ere  long  the  last  grand  note  of  triumph  will 
fly  through  the  land,  over  the  seas.  The  dragon  is  broken 
in  the  midst  of  the  waters.  Slavery  is  gone  down  forever. 
The  power  that  four  years  ago  defied  the  whole  world  — 
that  said  to  America,  "  Submit,  or  we  will  destroy  you ;  " 
that  said  to  Europe,  "  Acknowledge  us  or  your  people 
shall  starve  in  their  huts,  your  factories  be  silent,  your 
ships  rot  at  you  wharves ; "  that  said  to  itself,  "  We 
have  climbed  to  the  top  of  human  sovereignty  —  the  South, 
the  East,  the  West,  the  North  are  ours."  Where  is  it 
now  ?  "  Perished  from  the  earth  it  has  so  long  so  griev- 
iously  cursed."  Hallelujah  !  the  Lord  God  omnipotent 
reigneth  ! 

One  more  blow  on  his  accursed  brow  by  our  soldiers,  one 
more  by  every  patriot  arm  at  the  ballot-box,  and  he  lies  dead 
forever.  He  enters  history,  cruel  as  the  burning  Moloch, 
vile  as  the  wanton  Baal,  proud  as  the  imperious  Satan, 


488  THE   END   NEAR. 

the  demon  of  America  cast  out  forever  from  the  earth, 
thrust  down  forever  to   the   lowest   hell. 

"Up  then,  in  Freedom's  manly  part, 

From  gray-beard  eld  to  fiery  youth, 
And  on  the  nation's  naked  heart 

Scatter  the  burning  coals  of  Truth. 
Now  break  the  chain —  the  yoke  remove, 

And  smite  to  earth  oppression's  rod, 
With  those  mild  arms  of  Truth  and  Love, 

Made  mighty  through  the  living  God." 


THE    WONDERFUL    TEAK/ 


"  THE  TEAR  OF  THE  RIGHT   HAND  OF  THE  MOST   HlGH."  —  Ps.  IxxiH.  10. 


HE  year  1666  was  long  known  in  British  annals  as 
Annus  Mirabilis,  The  Wonderful  Year.  Dryden 
celebrated  its  marvels  in  one  of  his  ablest  poems. 
Yet  its  wonders  consisted  solely  in  a  few  forgot- 
ten victories  over  the  Dutch  and  the  great  fire  of  London. 
Much  more  will  the  year  1864  stand  forth  in  our  annals  as 
wonderful. 

The  year  naturally  divides  itself  in  two  parts — our  prog- 
ress in  arms,  our  greater  progress  in  principles.  Let  us 
first  consider  the  least,  though  the  seeming  greatest. 

I.  Our  military  progress  is  a  cause  of  the  highest  national 
exultation.  One  year  ago  our  situation  was  far  inferior  to 
what  it  is  to-day.  We  held,  under  menace,  Chattanooga 
and  the  Rapidan.  We  were  beleaguered  in  Knoxville  ;  a 
proud  and  confident  foe  ranged  through  the  valleys  of  East 
Tennessee.  We  were  holding  foolish  revelry  in  New  Or- 
leans, while  the  enemy,  growling  and  hungry,  were  prowl- 
ing through  the  whole  interior,  and  often  upon  the  banks 


A  sermon  preached  in  Boston,  January  1,  1865. 


(489) 


490  THE    WONDERFUL    YEAR. 

of  the  Mississippi,  looked  in  contemptuously  upon  our  silly 
junketings.  Great  activity  prevailed  through  the  hostile 
region  in  the  recruiting  of  their  armies  and  the  replenishing 
of  their  military  stores.  Never  were  their  ranks  so  full ; 
never  their  cannon  so  numerous  ;  never  their  muskets  so 
many  and  so  good  ;  never  their  spirits  or  their  stock  so 
high.  They  were  sure  that  this  year  would  conclude  the 
war  in  their  favor.  Their  friends,  here  and  abroad,  were 
not  the  less  sanguine.  Six  times  had  we  sought,  under  as 
many  different  commanders,  to  break  the  line  of  their  Rich- 
mond approaches,  and  each  time  had  been  bloodily  repulsed. 

The  opening  of  the  year  was  disastrous.  Our  gay  and 
festive  army  at  New  Orleans  abandoned  its  gayety  and  fes- 
tivity for  a  season,  and  sailed  pompously  out,  down  the 
coast  of  Texas,  only  to  sail  back  again,  shorn  of  their 
pomp,  but  not  their  vanity.  Again  they  essay  a  land  attack ; 
and,  like  Braddock  in  the  equipage  of  a  muster  field,  with 
trains  of  cotton  speculators  in  their  ranks  or  rear,  they 
march  into  the  deadly  ambuscades  of  Shreveport.  The 
scattered  fragments  pick  their  perilous  way  back  to  the 
hilarious  city,  and  the  conquered  hero  comes  North  to 
receive  an  ovation  from  his  exultant  fellow-citizens.  At 
Chattanooga  the  results  were  equally  disastrous.  We  had 
sought  to  move  out  southward,  only  to  be  surprised  and 
nearly  annihilated  at  the  bloody  streamlet  of  Chickamauga. 
One  wing  and  one  chieftain  alone  preserved  us  from  com- 
plete destruction  —  the  same  chief  that  has  just  crowned 
himself  with  fresh  and  unfading  glory  in  his  utter  annihi- 
lation at  Nashville  of  the  same  army  that  there  so  nearly 
routed  ours. 

Driven  back  into  Chattanooga,  the  enemy  had  followed, 
and  the  hills  about  the  city  were  covered  with  the  insulting 
foe.  The  railroads  were  under  their  control ;  means  of 
subsistence  had  failed  ;  their  shot  and  shell  dropped  daily 
into  a  defenceless  camp,  and  the  extinction  of  the  army  of 


SECOND  ELECTION  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN.        491 

the  Cumberland  was  daily  expected  —  would  soon  have  been 
consummated.  From  this  calamity  General  Grant  had  saved 
us  ;  and  under  his  bold  generals  had  stormed  the  hights  of 
Missionary  Ridge  and  Lookout  Mountain,  and  forced  the  foe 
back  from  the  bloody  fords  of  Chickamauga.  Here  he  had 
paused ;  and  here  only  did  a  gleam  of  sunshine  glitter  upon 
our  bayonets  till  more  than  a  third  of  the  year  had  passed. 
Nay,  so  thick  was  the  darkness,  that  as  late  as  May  our 
fortified  posts  on  the  North  Carolina  coast  were  attacked, 
and  all  but  Newbern  captured.  Forrest  made  sacred  forever 
the  waters  of  the  Mississippi  with  the  blood  of  our  massa- 
cred soldiers  —  blood  that,  flowing  from  dusky  veins,  gave 
the  stream  the  holy  redness  of  our  flag  of  national  freedom 
and  fraternity  the  holier  redness  of  the  heart  of  Christ. 
With  insolent  ferocity  he  raged  through  Kentucky,  and 
made  good  his  boast  that  he  would  water  his  horses  in  the 
Ohio.  Of  our  three  armies,  one  was  annihilated,  one  barely 
holding  its  own  in  the  heart  of  the  rebellion,  and  the  last, 
long  considered  the  first,  held  at  bay  in  the  same  spot, 
beyond  which  it  had  essayed  for  three  years  in  vain  to 
march. 

Now  witness  the  contrast.  In  these  eight  months  we 
have  thrown  our  army  upon  Richmond,  and  held  it  there. 
Steadily  have  we  pushed  our  lines  around  the  fated  city, 
and  the  line  once  formed  has  never  been  broken.  In  a 
series  of  battles  that  have  had  no  equal  on  this  continent, 
and  no  superior  on  any,  have  we  won  our  way  to  its  gates. 
Its  chief  line  of  communication  is  sundered.  Its  army,  cooped 
up  within  its  walls,  is  constrained  to  helplessly  behold  the 
overthrow  of  its  coordinate  armies  in  other  sections  of  the 
field.  Its  general,  by  far  the  greatest,  almost  the  only 
great  one  in  its  service,  looks  painfully  on  the  desolations 
that  are  made  in  the  very  heart  of  his  territory,  but  with 
no  power  to  stay  the  march  of  the  desolator.  He  awaits 
in  sullen  silence  his  own  steadily  approaching  doom.  The 


492  THE   WONDERFUL    YEAR. 

troops  that  lay  in  Chattanooga,  helpless  under  the  fiery 
shower  from  the  surrounding  summits,  now  look  upon  the 
blue  sea,  in  possession  of  the  second  commercial  seat  of  the 
rebellion,  after  a  fierce  and  deadly  march  of  over  two  hun- 
dred miles,  to  the  seat  of  the  armaments  and  military  fac- 
tories of  the  rebellion,  and  with  a  subsequent  march  of  three 
hundred  miles,  most  agreeable,  most  peaceful,  most  tri- 
umphant. 

The  deluded  foe  seeks  to  take  vengeance  by  recapturing 
one  of  its  own  cities,  that  it  now  with  a  prophetic  instinct 
calls  ours,  only  to  meet  with  complete  and  everlasting  de- 
struction. Thus  rests  the  field  to-day.  One  repulse  alone 
shades  the  picture  —  that  of  Wilmington  ;  offset,  however, 
by  the  victory  of  Farragut  at  Mobile,  who  shows  that  on 
the  sea,  as  with  England  in  the  days  of  Nelson,  we  have 
one  captain  that  always  conquers.  To  him  the  two  re- 
maining posts  of  the  rebellion  may  bow,  as  the  two  greatest 
have,  unless  Sherman  captures  them  by  land  as  he  has 
Savannah. 

In  this  military  review  we  should  not  fail  to  see  the  dif- 
ferent status  of  affairs  between  this  winter  and  last,  in  the 
langour  that  invades  the  spirits  and  the  purposes  of  the  re- 
bellious leaders.  A  year  ago  they  were  alive  with  activity. 
The  conscription  was  everywhere  gathering  in  its  strong 
grasp  their  idle  or  cowardly  subjects.  They  were  a  unit 
in  purpose  and  in  action.  To-day  distractions  rule  their 
counsels,  inactivity  pervades  their  movements  ;  no  new 
levies,  except  those  of  slaves  ;  no  new  armies  springing  out 
the  earth  to  cope  with  our  victorious  legions ;  the  faintness, 
the  chill,  the  tremor,  the  horror  of  death  invade  this  huge, 
tyrannic  frame.  The  Giant  Despair  rages  in  blind  passion, 
and  staggers  to  his  eternal  doom. 

How  dark  was  the  prospect  last  May.  How  impenetra- 
ble the  gloom  of  last  August  —  the  darkest  month  of  the 
whole  war.  How  wonderful  the  brightness  of  this  new 


SECOND  ELECTION  OF  ABHAHAM  LINCOLN.         493 

year's  morning.  Surely  must  we  exclaim,  with  most  hum- 
ble, most  grateful  hearts,  Thy  right  arm,  0  Lord,  hath  gotten 
us  the  victory ! 

H.  But  other  and  greater  victories  await  our  attention. 
The  triumphs  of  principles  surpass  those  of  arms. 

One  of  the  most  important  battles  ever  fought  among 
men  was  waged  in  the  late  Presidential  contest.  Over 
myriads  of  leagues  the  combatants  contended.  Three  thou- 
sand miles,  from  ocean  to  ocean,  the  line  of  battle  stretched. 
Three  millions  of  soldiers  were  in  the  field.  The  gage  of 
battle  was  equally  grand.  Not  only  the  life  of  a  nation, 
but  the  life  of  humanity,  hung  trembling  in  the  balance  of 
the  hour.  Milton's  imagination  is  of  the  sublimest  order ; 
yet  his  description  of  the  war  in  heaven  excels  not  the 
plain  statements  of  the  actual  events  that  have  transpired 
in  America  to-day.  Were  he  living  at  this  hour,  and  in 
this  land,  in  his  moments  of  repose  from  the  duties  to  which 
his  patriot  soul  would  devote  itself,  his  pen  would  revel 
in  the  grandeur  of  the  scenes  that  have  moved  forward 
under  our  half-apprehensive  eyes.  It  will  assume  its  place 
in  history  as  one  of  the  last  turning  points,  may  we  hope, 
in  that  divine  highway  which  is  being  cast  up  among  men, 
and  which  ends  in  the 

"  Shining  table-lands, 
To  which  our  God  himself  is  moon  and  sun." 

1.  Its  importance  will  be  the  more  clearly  recognized 
by  contrasting  it  with  its  predecessor  —  the  election  of 
eighteen  hundred  and  sixty.  In  every  respect  will  it  be 
found  superior. 

(1.)  It  is  superior  in  the  circumstances  under  which  they 
were  fought.  Then  the  land  was  in  apparent  peace.  Quiet 
possessed  its  borders.  No  tramp  of  armed  men  resounded 
through  our  streets.  No  cannon  shook  the  skies.  No 
groans  of  wounded  multitudes  made  the  heavens  mourn. 


494  THE   WONDERFUL    YEAR. 

No  maimed  thousands  limped  about  our  doors.  No  weeds 
of  hopeless  sorrow  shadowed  the  souls  of  mothers,  wives, 
and  children,  "  grieving  over  the  unreturning  brave."  No 
dreams  of  war,  horrid  war,  affrighted  men's  hearts.  Here 
and  there  a  fevered  vision  might  fancy  it  discerned  it. 
.  Here  and  there,  possibly,  a  clearer  eye  did  behold  it.  But 
none  imagined  that  it  would  assume  such  a  fearful  magni- 
tude. The  wildest  dreamer  did  not  so  fill  the  land  with 
blood.  Among  peaceful  fields,  from  the  Rio  Grande  to  the 
St.  John's,  the  discussion  went  forward,  and  the  decision 
was  made.  Shotless  cannon  announced  the  victory,  and 
tearless  eyes  overflowed  with  joy. 

This  battle  was  fought  in  the  midst  of  gloom  and  anguish. 
Blood,  and  fire,  and  vapor  of  cannon  smoke  filled  all  the 
air.  Hundreds  of  thousands  of  our  bravest  arid  best  had 
entered  untimely  graves.  Hundreds  of  thousands  breathed 
painful  breath,  eating  the  bread  of  affliction  in  Southern 
prisons,  lying  torn  and  shattered  on  the  nation's  couches, 
or  wandering  among  us,  with  riven  frames  and  pallid  faces, 
fragments  of  their  then  vigorous  and  manly  selves.  Crape 
covered  many  a  heart  that  then  was  bright  with  bridal 
bloom.  Children  cried  for  fathers,  whose  bones  unburied 
looked  up  to  the  pitying  and  avenging  eyes  of  God.  Moth- 
ers by  scores  of  thousands  had  become  Naomis  and  Rachels. 
Wives  by  tens  of  thousands  were  going  down  in  sorrow  to 
the  grave.  What  a  land  !  lamentation  and  mourning,  the 
screaming  ball  and  the  wailing  household  joining  in  doleful 
miserere.  Starvation  over  hundreds  of  miles  that  then 
flourished  in  plenty  ;  and  worse  than  all,  brothers  aiming 
the  rifle  at  each  other's  hearts  that  then  were  dwelling 
together  in  unity. 

Can  we  say  that  an  election  proceeding  under  such  cir- 
cumstances is  superior  to  its  peaceful  predecessor  ?  Yes, 
even  in  these  very  elements  is  it  superior.  Look  beneath 


SECOND  ELECTION  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN.         495 

the  calm  exterior  of  the  former  campaign.  Over  all  that 
vast  domain,  where  now  war  rolls  its  bloody  surges,  rested 
the  gloom  of  hell.  Millions  of  delicate  women  wrought 
daily  in  the  field  without  reward  except  the  lash  of  the 
master,  and  were  nightly  scourged  to  most  horrible  service. 
Millions  of  men  were  subject  to  like  unmitigated  toil,  and 
to  hardly  less  agony  unutterable  as  they  were  compelled 
helplessly  to  behold  their  dearest  selves  the  dreadful  victims 
of  their  oppressors'  lust.  Everywhere  the  auction-block 
was  mounted  by  Christians,  while  demons  in  human  guise 
discussed  their  points,  as  they  would  those  of  beasts,  but 
with  a  ferocity  of  passion  such  as  no  legitimate  and  lower 
merchandise  awakens.  The  husband  and  wife,  whom  God 
had  joined  together,  man  rent  asunder.  The  babe  was  torn 
from  its  mother's  breast.  The  saintly  maiden  was  cast  into 
the  lecherous  clutch  of  a  fiendish  buyer  ;  arid  all  this  was 
sanctioned  by  the  professed  Church  of  Jesus  Christ.  Dea- 
cons, vestrymen,  and  class-leaders,  ministers,  and  bishops, 
vied  with  the  rumseller,  the  gambler,  and  the  avowed  liber- 
tine, in  this  traffic  of  hell.  Not  of  the  Father's  house,  but 
of  the  Father's  sons  and  daughters,  did  they  make  merchan- 
dise. All  churches  ran  together  to  see  which  should  soonest 
reach  this  goal  of  Satan.  They  all  alike  threw  off  the  im- 
pediments of  Northern  conscience  and  communion,  that  they 
might  the  more  easily  surpass  their  rivals  in  their  diabolic 
race.  Bishop  Polk  and  Bishop  Pierce,  Dr.  Palmer  and  Dr. 
Manly,  led  their  several  hosts  down  the  steep  places  of  sin 
into  this  gulf  of  perdition.  They  yet  retained  the  form  and 
likeness  of  sacramental  hosts  of  God's  elect,  though  with 
no  divine  presence  within  them,  and  only  divine  justice 
overhanging  them.  As  we  saw  their  seemingly  sacred 
forms,  Abdiel's  exclamation  at  Satan's  yet  undimmed  glory 
leaped  from  our  lips. 

"•O  Heaven  !  that  such  resemblance  of  the  highest 
Should  yet  remain,  where  faith  and  fealty 


496  THE   WONDERFUL    YEAE. 

Remain  not !    Wherefore  should  not  strength  and  might 
There  fail  where  virtue  fails,  or  weakest  prove 
Where  boldest,  though  to  sight  unconquerable  ?  " 

They  have  thus  proved.  Their  brightness,  their  strength, 
their  good  name  is  gone.  Those  then  puissant  congrega- 
tions and  commanders  have  sunk  into  as  complete  infamy, 
and  will  into  as  complete  destruction,  as  the  less  apostate 
churches  of  Ephraim  and  Jerusalem. 

Is  not  this  election  preferable  ?  The  auction-block  has 
rarely  exhibited  its  atrocities  since  the  fires  of  heaven  fell 
upon  this  hideous  Sodom,  whose  very  Lots  had  become  par- 
takers of  its  vilest  sins.  Bare  have  been  the  forced  sepa- 
rations, then  so  frequent ;  rare  the  lash,  then  so  constant ; 
rare  the  unspeakable  shames,  then  so  universal  and  so  awful. 
God  has  suspended  these  atrocities,  even  where  he  has  not 
yet  led  them  into  liberty.  Their  Pharaohs  have  paused  in 
their  career  of  abominations  where  they  have  not  yet  let 
them  go.  Baleful  as  were  the  attendant  miseries  of  the 
last  election,  they  were  blessed  as  the  smile  of  heaven  in 
comparison  with  the  agonies  that  then  rolled  up  from  half 
the  land  in  a  wail  that  made  the  angels  weep. 

(2.)  In  another  respect  it  may  be  said  this  last  election 
is  inferior  to  its  predecessor.  "  That  was  held  freely  over 
the  whole  country,  this  only  over  a  fraction."  But  this 
statement  is  not  true.  This  was  a  freer  and  fuller  expres- 
sion of  the  people's  sentiments  than  was  that. 

In  one  half  of  the  land  four  years  ago,  no  man  could 
have  deposited  a  ballot  for  Mr.  Lincoln  without  the  sacrifice 
of  his  life.  Freedom  of  the  ballot  was  as  much  precluded 
from  the  States  below  the  Ohio  as  freedom  of  men.  There 
was  immeasurably  greater  liberty  of  voting  at  this  election 
in  Kentucky,  Tennessee,  Virginia,  and  Maryland,  than  was 
ever  known  there  before.  A  friend  in  Baltimore  told  me 
that  it  was  at  the  risk  of  his  life  that  he  gave  his  vote  for 
Mr.  Lincoln  in  1860.  Now  that  city  rolls  up  a  heavier  vote 


SECOND   ELECTION   OF  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.        497 

for  him  than  even  Boston.  The  alarm  cry  of  our  regiments 
at  the  Relay,  fearing  midnight  assault,  was  "  Baltimore  ;  " 
the  midnoon  shout  of  joy  to-day  is  "  Baltimore  ;  "  so  swift 
tread  time  and  truth. 

(3.)  The  late  campaign  is  superior  to  the  former  in  its 
relation  to  the  great  evil  against  which  they  fought.  Both 
are  but  parts  of  one  stupendous  whole.  Both  are  steps  of 
God  in  His  march  through  the  earth.  Each  involves  more 
than  it  formally  asserts.  Their  declarations  of  policy  and 
purpose  show  how  great  has  been  our  progress  in  this  brief 
hour  of  time. 

Four  years  ago,  the  highest  we  could  reach  was  the  non- 
extension  of  slavery.  To  touch  it  where  it  ruled,  was  de- 
clared impossible.  To  lift  the  fetters  from  a  single  neck,  to 
even  express  sympathy  for  those  who  wore  them,  was  for- 
bidden. Our  unpeopled  territories  should  be  free.  So  said 
only  a  minority  of  the  people,  and  they  not  its  representa- 
tives of  fashion,  wealth,  or  influence.  To-day,  by  a  great 
majority,  the  people  say,  "  No  more  slavery.  If  the  Con- 
stitution does  not  forbid  it,  amend  the  Constitution.  Not 
territories  alone  but  States,  not  wilds  but  cities,  shall  be 
cleansed  of  this  plague.  The  nation  shall  be  pure."  How 
vast  that  stride  !  Then  defensive,  almost  in  a  posture  of 
entreaty,  now  aggressive  and  defiant,  liberty  wraps  her 
starry  robe  about  her,  and  marches  forth  to  the  sovereignty 
of  the  continent.  • 

We  saw  the  gradual  approach  of  the  sun  of  Liberty.  We 
knew  that  it  was  the  first  blow  slavery  had  received  from 
the  arm  of  the  people,  and  that  from  it  she  could  not  re- 
cover. Though  it  might  fight  long  and  die  hard,  die  it 
must ;  yet  we  could  not  believe  it  would  die  so  soon. 

The  first  word   spoken  against  it   doomed  it.     Though 

Church  and  nation  subsided  into  silence  and  submission,  still 

that  word  lived.     It  broke  forth  with  new  power  through 

the  pen  of  Mr.  Garrison.     And  for  the  first  time  since  he 

32 


498  THE   WONDERFUL  YEAR. 

leaped  into  this  conflict  with  all  the  power  and  populace 
of  the  land,  could  the  great  revivalist  of  this  reform  approve 
the  nomination  and  aid  in  the  election  of  a  chief  magistrate. 
He  ought  to  have  been  on  the  electoral  ticket  of  Massachu- 
setts with  Edward  Everett.  The  dullest  eye  would  then 
have  seen  the  mighty  change.  The  two  antagonists  of 
Mr.  Lincoln,  each  from  an  opposite  side,  the  one  the  con- 
servative candidate  for  the  vice-presidency,  the  other  the 
most  radical  denouncer  of  any  presidency  upon  such  a  Con- 
stitution, the  extreme  lover  of  the  Union  and  the  extreme 
lover  of  liberty  unite  together,  to  uphold  both  of  these  great 
pillars  of  our  national  temple. 

(4.)  This  conflict  is  greater  than  its  predecessor  in  its 
effect  upon  foreign  nations.  The  former  election  was  local 
and  unknown.  It  was  not  seen  across  the  Atlantic  save 
by  a  few  discerning  eyes.  The  masses,  whether  titled  or 
without  a  surname,  whether  in  robes  or  rags,  saw  nothing. 
To-day  they  see  nothing  else.  The  quarrels  of  Europe  were 
unseen.  Their  international  politics,  once  so  grand  to  their 
unwidened  vision,  appear  as  the  battles  or  diplomacies  of 
pigmies.  What  matters  it  if  Denmark  is  disparted,  or  Italy 
united,  or  Poland  subjugated  ?  They  are  baubles  of  an 
hour,  tiny  eddies  of  the  great  current  whose  gulf  stream 
sweeps  across  America.  Even  the  pregnant  movements  of 
this  continent,  the  imperializing  of  Mexico,  and  nationalizing 
of  British  America,  are  unlike  unnoticed.  Europe  pays'  no 
regard  to  them.  "What  is  that  rent  and  bleeding  Democracy 
going  to  do?"  cry  these  pallid  kings.  "Will  she  assert  her 
purpose  to  fight  it  out  on  that  line,  if  it  takes  a  century, 
or  will  she  succumb  to  her  foes  and  her  wounds,  and,  sink- 
ing amid  the  waves  her  blood  has  reddened,  leave  the  ocean 
of  the  future  free  to  our  monarchic  sails  ?  " 

"Will  she,"  cry  their  half-despairing  subjects,  "will  she 
abandon  the  struggle  for  our  rights  no  less  than  for  her 
own  ?  Will  she  be  slain  in  her  own  home  by  her  own 


SECOND   ELECTION  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN.       499 

children,  the  most  horrible  matricide  in  history  ?  And  shall 
we  weep  in  unutterable  sorrow  the  death  of  her  who  might 
have  been  the  mother  of  free  empires  wide  as  the  earth, 
enduring  as  time  ?  "  How  they  gathered  to  their  shores  ! 
How  they  fastened  greedy  eyes  upon  our  great  controversy ! 
How  they  .prayed  for  our  salvation  !  How  they  leaped  for 
joy  at  the  glorious  result !  We  were  exultant,  but  with  no 
such  happiness  as  beat  in  every  peasant  Breast  of  Europe. 

As  the  first  election  awoke  the  greatest  exultation  in  the 
cabins  of  Southern  slaves,  so  has  this  in  the  hardly  less 
degraded  cabins  of  England,  and  Scotland,  and  France,  and 
Germany.  It  carries  dismay  and  death  to  kings  and  their 
minions,  life  and  light  to  their  down-trodden  brethren.  Never 
before  did  such  a  message  cut  the  skies. 

2.  But  the  greatness  of  this  election  is  better  seen  by  a 
more  direct  contemplation  of  its  actual  results.  Not  alone 
in  the  questionable  superiority  of  war  over  slavery,  or  pub- 
licity over  privacy,  does  it  deserve  its  title  of  great,  but  by 
the  principles  which,  through  it,  have  become  the  unalterable 
masters  of  the  nation,  the  certain  masters  of  the  world. 

Three  ideas  essential  to  the  consummation  of  the  divine 
desire  in  Christ  with  respect  to  man  have  been  established 
by  this  decree  of  America. 

(1.)  The  first  is  that  of  Union.  The  debate  on  that  topic 
is  closed.  Till  this  year  it  has  always  been  questionable 
whether  the  Union  would  endure.  It  was  effected  with 
great  difficulty.  It  was  imperiled  at  the  stai't  by  the  wrong- 
ful demands  of  some  of  the  States,  by  the  wrongful  pride 
of  others. 

When  effected  by  the  partial,  and,  as  we  have  too  pain- 
fully learned,  by  the  fatal  surrender  of  principle,  it  was  still 
expected  to  survive  but  for  a  season.  In  1798,  within  ten 
years  after  its  organization,  the  Virginia  Democrats  set  State 
sovereignty  above  the  Union.  The  resolutions  of  Kentucky, 
which  were  written  by  Thomas  Jefferson,  became  the  serpent 


500  THE   WONDERFUL   YEAR. 

that  the  Satan  of  slavery  entered  and  seduced  the  new-born 
nation  from  her  rectitude.  To  what  depths  of  weakness 
and  disgrace  it  brought  her,  the  closing  hours  of  Mr.  Bu- 
chanan's administration  have  written  with  the  point  of  a 
diamond.  Under  their  formulary  the  nation  saw  her  forts 
and  armaments  seized,  her  power  triumphantly  defied  in  her 
own  domain,  and  herself  the  scorn  and  derision  of  every 
petty  princedom. 

Not  only  did  resolutions  thus  early  foreshadow  this  strug- 
gle ;  the  purpose  to  sever  the  Union  was  itself  avowed  in 
the  same  century  that  witnessed  its  birth.  It  assumed  many 
forms,  and  was  never  formally  passed  upon  by  the  people, 
unless  the  reelection  of  Andrew  Jackson,  by  a  great  major- 
ity, after  his  suppression  of  South  Carolina  nullification,  was 
an  expression  of  their  hostility  to  it.  If  so,  the  determination 
still  lived.  It  flourished  more  and  more.  The  re-awaken- 
ing of  the  national  conscience  to  the  great  evil  of  slavery, 
gave  its  supporters  the  pretext  they  desired.  For  thirty 
years  they  waged  the  ceaseless  strife.  At  last,  when  the 
people  had  mildly  said  to  this  iniquity,  "  Thus  far  shalt  thou 
go,  but  no  further,"  they  sprang  to  arms.  "  The  United 
States,"  cries  Keitt,  of  South  Carolina,  in  a  jubilant  voice 
to  his  rebellious  associates,  "  are  scattered  unto  a  thousand 
fragments."  "  Disunion  forever !"  reecho  the  leagued  trai- 
tors, as  they  hold  by  the  throat  eleven  States,  more  than 
a  third  of  her  commonwealths,  more  than  a  half  of  her 
domain. 

To  this  shout  of  disruption,  the  nation  with  a  universal 
voice,  responded,  "  Not  yet !  " 

"  Not  yet  the  hour  is  nigh,  when  they 

Who  deep  in  Eld's  dim  twilight  sit, 
Earth's  valiant  kings,  shall  rise  and  say, 

'  Proud  country,  welcome  to  the  pit ! 
So  soon  art  thou,  like  us,  brought  low? ' 
No,  sullen  group  of  shadows,  No ! 


SECOND  ELECTION  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN.       501 

"  For  now,  behold,  the  arm  that  gsive 

The  victory  in  our  fathers'  day, 
Strong,  as  of  old,  to  guard  and  save,  — 

That  mighty  arm,  which  none  can  stay,  — 
On  clouds  above  and  fields  below, 
.Writes,  in  men's  sight,  the  answer,  No ! 

"  O  country,  marvel  of  the  earth! 

O  realm,  to  sudden  greatness  grown ! 
The  age  that  gloried  in  thy  birth, 

Shall  it  behold  thee  overthrown? 
Shall  traitors  lay  that  greatness  low  ? 
No,  land  of  hope  and  beauty,  No !  " 

The  first  cry  for  the  Union  was  an  inspiration.  It  sprang 
unconsciously  from  every  lip.  They  said  "  a  picnic  excur- 
sion to  the  Potomac  will  settle  the  business.  Seventy-five 
thousand  men,  in  holiday  costume,  lounging  in  Baltimore 
and  Washington  hotels,  and  easily  moving  down  upon  Rich- 
mond, will  re-cement  the  Union  in  its  old  and  immaculate 
perfection."  They  knew  not  with  how  great  a  price  this 
treasure  was  to  be  bought.  One  army  after  another  must 
perish.  The  pleasure  excursion  must  become  funereal. 
"  Death  must  come  up  into  all  our  windows,  and  enter  into 
our  palaces,  to  cut  off  the  young  men  from  the  streets." 
After  three  years  and  over,  of  such  a  price  paid  for  the 
Union,  the  people  reaffirmed  their  solemn  vow,  not  as  at 
first  in  thoughtless  exultation  and  enthusiasm,  but  in  a  tear- 
ful, a  humble,  yet  most  resolute .  purpose  to  carry  out  that 
divine  inspiration,  at  whatever  expense  of  money  or  of  life. 

So  intense  was  this  feeling,  that  no  one  presumed  to  ask 
our  suffrages  who  would  not  publicly  consecrate  himself  to 
the  Union.  But  some  held  out  the  olive  branch  to  the  re- 
bellion ;  complained  of  the  war  and  the  sacrifices  of  purse, 
of  life,  of  liberty  that  were  essential  to  secure  its  perpetua- 
tion ;  and  the  people  decided,  with  an  agreement  that  has 
since  been  made  unanimous  by  the  willing  cooperation  of 
all,  "  the  Union  shall  be  preserved ;  at  whatever  cost,  at 


502  THE    WONDERFUL   YEAR. 

whatever  hazard,  at  whatever  suffering,  we  will  bo  still  one 
people."  From  the  Calais  of  our  continent  to  its  Golden 
Gate,  a  space  larger  than  that  which  Europe  spans  between 
her  Calais  and  her  Golden  Horn,  with  a  depth,  a  solemnity, 
an  enthusiasm  that  was  unutterable,  the  heart,  the  voice, 
the  vote  said,  "  We  are,  we  will  be  one."  That  debate  has 
closed  ;  1864,  it  will  be  said  by  the  future  historian,  settled 
the  question  of  America's  nationality.  No  longer  will  State- 
rights  resolutions  vex  and  frighten  the  people.  No  longer 
will  we  foolishly  say,  "Our  system  is  an  experiment."  It 
has  ceased  to  occupy  that  place  in  human  aifairs.  Once  the 
press  was  an  experiment ;  so  was  the  railroad,  so  the  steam- 
ship, so  ocean  steam-navigation,  so  the  telegraph,  so  Protes- 
tantism, so  Christianity.  But  they  have  ceased  to  hold  such 
positions.  The  American  Union  has  likewise ;  it  stands 
forth  before  the  world  the  most  tried,  the  most  triumphant 
form  of  government  that  exists  among  men. 

(2.)  The  election  settled  the  greater  and  more  doubtful 
question  of  liberty.  The  President  had  proclaimed  eman- 
cipation ;  but  would  the  nation  proclaim  it  ?  It  was  his  act 
before,  his  alone.  Congress  had  not  confirmed  it.  The 
Supreme  Court  had  not  constitutionalized  it.  The  people, 
"  the  masters,"  as  the  President  happily  says,  "  of  Congress 
and  the  courts,"  sat  in  judgment  upon  it.  They  heard  the 
appeals  of  the  contending  attorneys.  They  carefully  de- 
liberated. They  enthusiastically  affirmed  it.  Henceforth  it 
stands  as  enduring  and  sublime  as  the  Declaration  and  the 
Constitution. 

Already  has  it  brought  forth  perfect  fruit.  Congress, 
the  servant  of  the  people,  has  uttered  its  decree,  and  the 
nation  is  redeemed  forever  from  the  yoke  of  bondage.  Four 
years  ago  we  only  dared  to  stay  the  progress  of  this  deluge 
of  death.  We  promised  to  preserve  it  inviolate  where  it 
was.  We  would  have  passed  an  amendment  to  the  Consti- 
tution, pledging  ourselves  to  secure  it  national  protection  in 


SECOND  ELECTION  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN.       503 

the  States  where  it  existed,  if  that  would  have  appeased  our 
enraged  masters.  Charles  Francis  Adams  offered  such  an 
amendment,  and  only  the  hopelessness  of  its  acceptance  by 
the  slaveholders  prevented  its  passage  ;  and  now  another 
amendment  has  passed,  not  to  preserve  it  intact,  but  to 
sweep  it  from  the  land.  Then  the  President,  under  his 
inaugural  oath,  promised  it  the  support  of  his  official  arm ; 
now  the  same  President,  before  the  campaign  opens,  and 
when  policy  requires  those  declarations  that  are  the  least 
offensive  and  the  most  popular,  announces  his  purpose  to 
labor  for  its  universal  extirpation. 

No  equal  reform  was  ever  so  speedily  effected.  Never 
before  has  a  great  nation  so  suddenly  swept  away  an 
iniquity  which  was  so  inwoven  into  its  whole  fabric  of 
social  as  well  as  civil  life  as  to  have  received  the  familiar 
title  of  "  the  domestic  institution."  Till  within  four  years  it 
governed  the  land.  It  had  elected  our  presidents,  appointed 
our  judges,  sent  abroad  our  ambassadors,  chosen  our  Con- 
gresses, enacted  our  laws,  controlled  our  commerce,  dictated 
our  fashions,  tyrannized  over  society  ;  had  been  the  only 
constant,  the  supreme  power  in  the  land. 

Thus  stood  the  system  then.  The  people  after  years  of 
exhortation  gained  courage  to  look  the  monster  in  the  face  ; 
they  dared  to  say  to  it  in  its  onward  march,  Halt !  It  raged 
on  them  with  supercilious  scorn.  "If  war  comes,"  says  its 
arch-leader,  "it  shall  be  on  Northern  soil.  They  shall  smell 
Southern  powder  and  feel  Southern  steel."  Little  did  its 
myrmidons  fancy  its  future.  They  were  assured  of  unques- 
tioned dominion. 

How  are  the  mighty  fallen  !  Three  fifths  of  their  territory 
is  wrested  from  them.  One  half  of  their  slaves  are  national 
freemen.  One  half  of  their  States  have  broken  from  their 
allegiance,  and  have  adopted  constitutions  forbidding  slavery. 
And  now  we  are  on  the  verge  of  universal  emancipation. 
Ere  this  year  shall  close,  liberty  will  be  proclaimed  by  the 


504  THE   WONDERFUL   YEAR. 

agreement  of  the  ratifying  States  throughout  all  the  land 
to  all  the  inhabitants  thereof.  Hallelujah  !  the  Lord  God 
omnipotent  reigneth  !  His  right  arm  hath  gotten  Him  the 
victory ! 

Wise  men,  even  when  believing  in  Abolitionism,  counted 
those  foolish  who  said  when  the  former  election  occurred, 
that  under  peaceable  movements  slavery  would  cease  before 
1876,  but  if  war  came  it  would  not  last  five  years.  War 
came,  and  where  is  it  ?  You  may  diligently  consider  its 
place,  but  it  is  not.  As  the  antediluvian  world  in  forty  days 
was  washed  out  of  the  earth,  with  all  its  wealth  and  pride, 
with  its  solid  temples  and  palaces,  so  that  the  keenest 
antiquarian  can  find  no  trace  of  its  existence,  so  has  this 
system,  wicked  as  any  the  antediluvian  sinners  imagined, 
much  less  did,  been  buried  under  the  deluge  of  God's  in- 
dignation through  the  myriad  arms  and  votes  of  His  obedient 
people. 

(3.)  This  election  was  the  victory  of  Democracy.  Union 
might  have  been  maintained  and  true  democracy  destroyed. 
So  was  it  well  nigh  in  the  "  save-the-Union  "  victories  of 
1852  and  1856.  So  is  it  utterly  in  the  strong  league  of  the 
slaveholders  to-day.  But  our  victory  was  the  triumph  of 
the  equal  rights  of  all  men,  without  distinction  of  color  or 
origin.  "  I  vote  the  white  man's  ticket,"  said  one  on 
depositing  his  ballot  for  the  unsuccessful  candidate.  "  I 
vote  all  men's  ticket,"  might  have  been  the  just  response  to 
his  anti-democratic  democracy.  This  question,  deeper  far 
than  that  of  Union,  deeper  even  than  that  of  liberty,  was 
also  in  the  thickest  of  the  great  conflict.  It  was  the  un- 
spoken word,  louder  than  any  that  was  uttered.  It  was  the 
undertow,  stronger  than  any  which  agitated  the  surface,  that 
moved  the  Ship  of  State  on  its  God-appointed  course. 

This  victory  has  already  achieved  great  results.  Its 
greatest  we  have  mentioned.  It  alone  produced  the  amend- 
ment and  purged  the  land  of  its  ancestral  curse.  Another 


SECOND   ELECTION   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN.        505 

result,  hardly  inferior,  deserves  a  record.  It  caused  the 
elevation  of  Mr.  Chase  to  the  Chief- Justiceship.  Had 
his  principles  not  triumphed  in  that  campaign,  he  would 
not  sit,  to-day,  on  the  throne  of  national  justice,  their 
most  permanent,  and,  with  one  exception,  most  exalted  em- 
bodiment. 

For  a  generation  the  people  had  been  made  to  err  in 
judgment.  One  who  occupied  that  bench  had  begun  his 
career  as  an  abolitionist,  but  abandoned  it  under  the  tempta- 
tions of  ambition.  That  seat  became  the  fountain  of  in- 
justice. The  whole  bench  became  corrupt.  Every  judge 
became  a  partaker  of  the  sins  of  his  chief.  If  one  died  who 
kept  his  ermine  spotless  amid  the  great  defilement,  his  place 
was  supplied  with  one  fouler  than  the  rest,  until  at  the  last 
the  whole  was  a  unit  of  sin  and  shame.  The  circuit  judges, 
and  even  the  commissioners,  were  infected  with  the  same 
poison,  so  that  no  human  being  pleading  for  his  liberty 
found  favor  in  the  eyes  of  these  unjust  judges.  The  fact 
that  they  sought  it  was  made  the  ground  of  its  refusal. 
The  more  they  wearied  them  the  less  they  obtained  justice. 
In  Boston  as  well  as  in  Charleston  did  this  iniquity  sit  in  the 
throne  of  judgment. 

At  last  their  Chief  spoke,  and,  like  his  master  in  Eden, 
gave  the  lie  to  all  the  principles  in  which  we  were  created. 
America,  the  child  of  equal  rights,  gives  no  rights  to  one 
sixth  of  her  population.  Free  or  slave,  they  are  all  without 
the  pale  of  law.  They  cannot  plead 'at  her  bar  for  property, 
liberty,  or  life.  They  cannot  testify  for  themselves  or 
others.  They  cannot  defend  themselves,  their  wives,  or 
their  children.  They  have  no  rights  which  this  nation  is 
bound  to  respect. 

God  heard  that  hiss  of  hell,  and  He  too  entered  this  Eden 
and  walked  among  a  fallen  people,  who  sought  to  hide  them- 
selves from  Him  by  impudently  denying  His  authority  and 
His  law.  He  said,  "  If  My  children  have  no  rights,  you 


506  THE   WONDERFUL  YEAR. 

shall  have  no  peace.  If  they  cannot  hold  their  property,  I 
will  take  yours  away.  If  they  are  deprived  of  their  liberty, 
your  sons  shall  pine  in  a  more  loathsome  prison-house, 
beside  which  the  hut  and  the  fare  of  My  negro  child  are 
princely.  If  their  lives  are  not  protected,  yours  shall  be 
wasted."  How  fearfully  has  He  avenged  His  own  elect  who 
cried  day  and  night  unto  Him !  We  have  heard  and  heeded, 
and  through  this  election  brought  forth  a  great  work,  meet 
for  our  great  repentance.  For  that  God-vacated  office  the 
national  voice  nominated  their  candidate.  It  was  God's  ap- 
pointment, not  theirs.  He  had  identified  himself  with  the 
oppressed  from  the  beginning.  lie  had  been  a  consistent, 
humble,  faithful  lover  of  God  and  his  fellow-man.  He  had 
plead  their  rights  unheard  at  the  very  bar  where  now  he 
sits  supreme.  Greatest  of  all  our  victories  is  this.  More 
than  the  triumphs  of  Grant,  and  Sherman,  and  Farragut ; 
more  than  the  reelection  of  Mr.  Lincoln  and  the  assertion  of 
our  unity  and  abolitionism,  is  the  elevation  of  Salmon  P. 
Chase  to  the  Chief-Justiceship  of  America.  Those  were 
wrested  from  our  foes,  this  from  ourselves.  Those  were 
the  expressions  of  pride,  this  of  principle.  Those  sought  to 
save  the  national  life,  this  the  national  soul.  Those  insured 
our  existence,  this^our  glory. 

His  was  more  than  the  appointment  of  Jay  or  Marshall. 
Upright  as  they  were,  they  were  not  selected  especially  in 
view  of  the  relation  of  their  uprightness  to  existing  wrong. 
Justice  Chase  was.  He  will  uproot  with  his  judicial  ax  not 
slavery  alone,  but  its  worse  roots,  caste  and  prejudice,  and 
all  the  undemocratic  and  unjust  treatment  of  our  fellow- 
citizens  and  fellow-men,  and  complete  the  work  that  is  so 
gloriously  begun.* 

*  In  the  light  of  this  position  of  Mr.  Chase,  his  private  words,  written 
to  Theodore  Parker,  are  worthy  of  our  attention.  They  are  found  in 
the  Appendix  to  Mr.  Parker's  Life,  p.  520.  Thus  he  writes:  "I  don't 
pretend  to  be  a  very  wise  or  expert  statesman,  or  anything  of  that  sort ; 


SECOND  ELECTION  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN.       507 

3.  The  consequences  of  this  decision  are  twofold  :  those 
that  concern  foreign  states,  those  that  will  affect  our  own. 

(1.)  This  election  will  be  an  important  step  in  the  libera- 
tion of  Europe.  As  the  "  bubble  democracy "  has  not 
"burst,"  that  of  aristocracy  must.  The  two  systems  are 
wrestling  for  the  mastery  of  the  world.  Three  millions  of 
bayonets  support  a  half  dozen  thrones  on  the  necks  of  a 
hundred  millions  of  men.  Those  hundred  millions  have 
heard  this  great  decision  ;  their  half  a  score  of  masters  have 
heard  it  also.  Victoria  sees  in  it  the  hand  of  America,  her 
nation's  first  born,  writing  the  doom  of  her  family  on  the 
walls  of  her  palace.  Napoleon  beholds  in  it  his  dream 
dissolving,  of  Mexican  domination  and  California  acquisi- 
tion. The  breakwater  he  had  hoped  to  have  set  across  our 
Southern  line  to  the  deluge  of  democracy  is  swept  away, 
and  the  refluent  waves  will  not  only  drown  his  American 
pretensions  but  his  central  throne. 

Already  "The  Times"  confesses  its  influence  on  the  rising 
demands  of  the  disfranchised  masses  of  Britain.  Already 
the  Secretary  of  her  Treasury  declares  that  manhood  is  the 
only  right  basis  for  suffrage.  Already  the  peasants  and 
patriots  of  the  continent  are  uniting  together  for  the  com- 
mon weal. 

The  suddenness  and  completeness  of  our  emancipation  is 
but  a  type  of  that  which  will  yet  renew  the  face  of  the  earth. 
In  a  day  has  this  nation  been  born.  In  one  shall  those  of 
England,  France,  Germany,  Italy,  Greece,  and  Russia  ;  not 
in  their  present  disintegrated  and  hostile  condition,  but  like 
ours,  a  unity  of  life,  of  liberty,  of  name  ;  one  nation,  free, 
fraternal,  Christian. 

(2.)  But  more  important  duties  invite  our  service.     We 

but  a  roughly-trained  practical  man,  who  wishes  to  do  something  for 
truth,  justice,  and  human  progress,  and  who  would  prefer  that  what  little 
he  does  or  says  should  be  so  spoken  of,  that  nothing  in  his  example  of 
word  or  deed  shall  even  seem  to  contribute  to  the  upholding  of  wrong." 


508  THE   WONDERFUL  YEAR. 

too  have  a  future  as  well  as  a  present  and  a  past ;  and  it 
would  ill  become  us  in  our  rejoicings  over  what  we  have 
attained  to  be  unmindful  of  what  yet  remains  to  be  ac- 
complished. 

This  battle  has  settled  two  great  questions  that  have  been  in 
fierce  debate  and  in  perilous  position  throughout  our  history. 
It  has  shown  that  the  nation  is  rooted  and  grounded  in  the 
doctrine  of  Union  and  the  doctrine  of  liberty.  These  pillars 
of  its  common  weal  it  will  stand  by  so  long  as  its  nationality 
endures.  There  is  yet  one  step  it  must  take, — Fraternity. 
The  French  democrats  wisely  put  this  as  the  climax  of  their 
creed.  It  is  there  and  everywhere  the  highest  grace,  arid 
the  last  attained.  We  have  decided  for  democracy.  We 
must  carry  out  the  principles  of  democracy.  That  principle 
is  no  distinction  of  man  from  man  by  any  accidents  of  color 
or  clime.  "All  ye  are  brethren"  is  its  sole  creed.  We 
have  yet  failed  to  embrace  this  truth.  The  Cleveland  Plat- 
form declared  the  right  of  all  men  to  suffrage.  Congress  in 
its  territorial  constitutions,  Maryland  and  Missouri  in  their 
new  free  constitutions,  limit  that  right  to  white  men.  They 
are  not  yet  wholly  free.  Only  by  consistently  obeying  this 
call  of  God  can  we  preserve  that  whereto  we  have  attained. 
Cromwell  and  Napoleon  both  failed  in  the  great  revolutions 
they  achieved  ;  and  why  ?  Because  they  were  false  to  the 
fundamental  principle  of  those  revolutions.  The  Pilgrims  of 
Plymouth  gave  Cromwell  the  model  of  a  free  commonwealth. 
Equality  and  fraternity  were  the  foci  of  its  orbit.  He 
created  himself  lord,  and  the  Lord  of  lords  cast  him  down 
headlong,  and  his  work  fell  with  him  into  a  grave,  where  it 
has  lain  for  more  than  two  centuries.  Napoleon  was  the 
child  of  democracy.  He  denied  the  mother  that  bore  him, 
and  was  cast  out  and  trodden  under,  foot  of  his  enemies. 
This  grace  he  could  not  retain.  The  peasant  Frenchman  the 
Emperor's  equal  ?  Never.  Do  not  we  feel  like  him  ?  Would 
we  not  welcome  to  our  tables  to-day  a  rebellious  slaveholder 


SECOND   ELECTION   OF   ABEAHAM  LINCOLN.        509 

sooner  than  his  loyal  slave,  even  if  the  latter  was  as  well- 
mannered  as  the  former  ?  Would  we  place  one  of  this  class 
in  our  stores  or  shops,  however  capable  ?  Would  we  accept 
the  brightest  scholar  in  the  land,  if  of  this  race,  as  a  pro- 
fessor in  our  schools,  or  the  most  eloquent  preacher,  whose 
lips  God  has  anointed  with  grace,  as  our  pastor  arid  guide  ? 

This  prejudice  exists  only  in  this  fraction  of  our  continent. 
It  must  be  overcome  here.  The  conductor  on  the  cars  from 
Cairo  to  Alexandria  was  as  black  as  ebony,  while  nearly  all 
the  passengers  were  either  Europeans  or  Arabs ;  and  the 
African  was  the  easy  master  of  the  turbulent  Asiatics  and 
the  haughty  Caucasians. 

To  the  removal  of  this  prejudice  every  lover  of  Christ  and 
his  country  should  devote  himself.  If  we  pause  now,  we 
fall  back  into  a  deeper  pit  than  that  out  of  which  God  has 
most  mercifully  and  most  miraculously  delivered  us. 

That  such  is  our  peril,  the  history  of  the  great  party 
whose  career  is  just  closing  clearly  shows.  No  party  ever 
had  a  more  glorious  beginning.  It  sprang  into  life  as  the 
friend  of  man. 

It  won  the  power,  and  war  arose.  In  the  hight  of  the 
war  the  Federalists  assailed  it  and  were  annihilated.  An 
era  of  good  feeling  sprang  up.  The  Democrats  rejected 
the  doctrine  of  the  equal  rights  of  all  men,  the  headstone 
of  their  corner,  and  it  has  become  the  headstone  of  their 
grave.  Jeiferson  favored  slavery,  of  which  he  had  declared 
God  had  no  attribute  that  did  not  make  war  upon  it.  lie 
urged  its  extension  beyond  the  Mississippi.  The  democracy 
passed  the  Missouri  Compromise,  and  in  that  day,  dying  it 
died.  Neve'r  since  has  it  breathed  its  natal  air.  Never 
since  has  it  been  the  defender  of  the  rights  of  man. 

4.  But  if  the  year  has  been  thus  wonderful  in  its  deeds, 
the  duties  it  imposes  are  not  less  vital.  What  is  the  service 
to  which  the  Master  calls  us  ?  This,  and  this  only  :  — 

To  abolish  from  the  national  action  and  the  national  heart 
all  distinctions  arising  from  color  or  origin. 


510  THE   WONDERFUL  YEAR. 

(1.)  In  the  discharge  of  this  duty  we  must  seek  to  abolish 
the  unrighteous  distinctions  which  are  made  in  the  composi- 
tion and  control  of  our  armies.  Had  it  been  announced  to  our 
foreign-born  population,  "You  can  only  serve  in  regiments  of 
your  own  nationality  ;  you  are  forbidden  to  march  in  the 
same  company  with  American  troops,"  how  would  they  have 
scorned  the  summons  of  such  a  government !  How  justly 
would  they  have  said,  "  Let  Americans  save  America,  if 
they  persist  in  oppressing  us  with  such  invidious  distinc- 
tions!" Equally  just  would  it  have  been  for  colored  Ameri- 
cans to  have  said,  "  You  compel  us  to  keep  in  regiments  by 
ourselves  ;  we  will  march  in  no  regiments  at  all.  You  brand 
us  with  prejudicial  infamy ;  we  will  not  voluntarily  accept 
the  insult.  If  your  government  shall  draft  us  and  compel  us 
to  fight,  we  are  powerless  to  resist;  but  not  of  ourselves 
will  we  rally  to  the  flag;  that  is  not  fraternal." 

This  distinction  must  be  abolished.  A  citizen,  if  he  volun- 
teers, should  join  what  regiment  he  chooses  ;  if  he  is  drafted, 
those  that  most  need  his  musket.  We  shall  then  cease  to 
read  of  the  valor  of  white  or  colored  troops  as  separate 
bodies,  but  of  men  and  patriots,  whose  complexion  may  be 
various,  but  whose  blood  and  bravery  are  one. 

We  should  abolish  also  the  refusal  to  grant  them  commis- 
sions and  commands.  This  glaring  injustice  will  be  patent 
to  every  eye,  if  we  consider  what  would  be  the  feelings  and 
conduct  of  other  privates  should  such  a  law  degrade  them. 
Were  it  announced  to  the  army  that  only  West  Point 
graduates  could  hold  commissions  ;  that  their  valor,  their 
skill,  their  experience  can  only  elevate  them  to  a  sergeant's 
bands,  how  long  would  they  serve  such  a  land  ?'  Yet  there 
are  a  hundred  thousand  of  our  soldiers  who  fight  under  this 
insulting  opprobrium.  However  valorous,  however  endowed 
with  military  genius,  however  prodigal  of  life,  they  are  not 
only  compelled  to  serve  in  the  ranks,  but  to  see  less  com- 
petent white  men  set  over  them,  and  that  solely  on  the 


SECOND   ELECTION   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.        511 

ground  of  their  complexion.  This  great  injustice,  this 
democratic  lie,  must  be  abandoned.  It  is  part  and  parcel 
of  the  system  of  aristocracy  that  we  have  formally  decreed 
shall  vanish  away.  The  work  has  been  initiated  by  the 
conferring  of  a  lieutenant's  commission  on  one  of  these 
soldiers.  It  should  be  hastened  forward.  Congress  should 
abolish  the  unjust  distinction,  and  the  man,  whatever  his 
complexion  or  origin,  who  wins  his  shoulder  straps,  should 
wear  them  studded,  if  he  deserves  it,  with  the  three  stars  of 
a  lieutenant-general. 

(2.)  We  must  grant  them  civil  equality  and  fraternity. 

The  question  of  negro  suffrage  is  assuming  an  importance, 
not  only  to  the  true  Democrat  and  Christian,  but  to  the  most 
feeble  or  most  false  professor  of  democracy  and  Christianity. 
It  will  be  found  that  here  as  in  the  army  we  must  call  on 
those  we  yet  despise  to  corne  and  save  us.  Professor 
Lieber  shows  that  by  abolishing  slavery  we  have  increased 
the  basis  of  representation  in  the  Southern  States  by  the  two 
fifths  of  the  slaves  who  were  before  constitutionally  ex- 
cluded. If  these  are  forbidden  to  vote,  it  increases  the 
power  of  the  white  man  in  those  States  against  his  fellow  of 
the  North,  by  that  large  addition  to  a  census-counted  but 
non-voting  population.  If  the  rebels  should  be  allowed  to 
return  with  any  powers  and  privileges,  such  as  would  have 
been  accorded  them  in  the  late  peace  conferences,  they 
would  avail  themselves  of  this  iniquity  to  reestablish  them- 
selves in  more  than  their  former  power.  Our  only  and  sure 
cure  for  this  peril,  is  for  Congress  to  decree  the  right  of  suf- 
frage for  national  officers  to  be  without  respect  of  color. 

Again,  the  loyal  white  men  of  the  South  must  call  on  their 
equally  loyal  brothers,  often  of  more  white  than  colored 
descent,  to  come  and  save  them  from  the  voting  of  their 
secession  neighbors.  These  once  active  rebels,  when  these 
States  resume  their  forms  of  civil  life,  will  outnumber  their 
loyal  neighbors,  and  snatch  again  the  scepter  after  having 


512  THE   WONDERFUL  YEAR. 

thrown  down  the  sword  with  which  they  had  sought  the 
murder  of  the  very  government  they  will  then  represent. 
The  loyal  whites  will  be  cast  back  into  the  pit  out  of  which 
the  national  arm  has  dragged  them,  unless  they  will  lift 
their  like  loyal  colored  fellow-citizens  to  equal  honor. 

But  not  as  a  measure  of  necessity  should  this  be  urged. 
It  is  one  of  duty.  In  many  States  of  the  Union  this  cruel 
disability  exists.  With  proud,  rebellious  hearts  we  say, 
"  The  foreigner  may  vote,  the  native  shall  not.  The  brutal- 
ized victim  of  Papacy,  whom  priests  and  pope  make  hostile 
to  our  ideas  and  institutions,  may  oppose  the  government 
that  protects  him  with  ballot,  almost  with  bullet,  and  yet 
lose  no  right  of  suffrage  ;  while  the  most  Protestant  of  our 
Protestants,  the  most  godly  of  the  godly,  the  most  faithful 
of  the  faithful,  shall  not  utter  his  voice  at  the  ballot-box 
against  these  foreign  foes."  We  should  instantly  annihilate 
every  such  barrier,  and  make  suffrage  and  manhood  identi- 
cal. What  Gladstone  demands  for  England,  Congress  ought 
to  bestow  upon  America. 

"  But,"  cries  one  of  timid  soul,  "if  this  right  is  conferred 
so  freely  in  States  where  the  blacks  have  a  majority,  they  will 
become  its  governors  and  representatives,  and  a  black  man 
may  sit  as  a  senator  in  our  national  Capitol  !  "  And  why 
not  ?  Ought  not  the  larger  fraction  of  the  population  of 
South  Carolina,  who  are  among  the  most  loyal  in  the  land, 
to  have  the  administration  of  the  affairs  of  that  Common- 
wealth ?  And  if  the  most  conservative  citizens  have  for 
years  contemplated  with  approval,  and  aided  with  their 
liberality,  the  rising  glory  of  Liberia,  can  they  object  to  a 
more  truly  named  Liberia  growing  into  majestic  life  on  the 
ruins  of  Charleston,  so  long  the  seat  of  the  beast  ?  Will  not 
Captain  Kobert  Small  be  as  good  a  governor  of  South 
Carolina  as  Michael  Hahn,  far  less  loyal,  is  of  Louisiana  ? 
Is  not  his  first  office  prophetic  of  his  future,  and  is  not  the 
master  of  "The  Planter"  yet  to  be  the  master  of  the  planters  ? 


SECOND  ELECTION  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN.       513 

But  not  alone  in  the  States  where  they  are  numerically 
superior  will  they  justly  claim  the  position  their  merits 
shall  secure  for  them.  In  every  State  the  same  privileges 
must  be  accorded.  No  more  and  no  less  in  Carolina  than 
New  York  should  they  rise  higher  than  they  merit.  Here  as 
there,  whoever  deserves  the  highest  seats,  should  sit  there. 
Frederick  Douglass,  one  of  the  first  orators  and  clearest 
headed  statesmen  of  America,  should  be  the  representative 
in  Congress  from  his  district.  He  has  no  equal  in  the 
national  estimation  within  its  boundaries.  He  would  soon 
show  that  he  was  worthy  to  follow  his  great  Auburn  neigh- 
bor into  the  Senate  chamber  arid  the  Cabinet.  He  might 
win  what  the  other  has  lost,  because  to  his  ability  is  joined 
more  popularity  if  not  more  principle  —  the  highest  honor  the 
nation  can  bestow.  "  Palmamferat  qui  meruit  "  is  the  only 
motto  for  a  democratic  people.  If  he  deserves  the  palm  he 
should  carry  it,  by  the  votea  and  with  the  applause  of  all 
the  nation. 

(3.)  This  work  should  be  carried  forward  in  the  Church. 
Sad  is  the  fact,  but  most  true,  that  those  who  call  them- 
selves the  disciples  and  representatives  of  Jesus  Christ  are 
in  their  body,  the  most  tenacious  of  this  iniquity.  What- 
ever the  name  of  the  Church,  her  spirit  and  act  is  the  same. 
No  professed  Church  of  Jesus  Christ  here  has  reached  the 
hights  of  fraternity  which  every  other  profession  has  al- 
lowed. The  medical  and  the  legal  bodies  have  admitted 
them  as  equals  ;  not  so  the  clerical.  They  visit  around  the 
same  couch,  they  act  as  attorneys  for  the  same  client  as 
their  whiter  fellows  ;  they  cannot  belong  to  the  same  con- 
ference with  us,  travel  the  same  circuit,  or  be  settled  over 
the  same  congregation.  And  yet  the  Church  professes  to 
represent,  and  should  represent,  the  highest  ideas  that  man 
can  receive  or  entertain.  It  is  the  depository,  the  vehicle 
of  God.  His  best  truths  he  commits  to  her  as  a  distributing- 
reservoir  to  all  the  world.  Her  ministers  He  deigns  to  call 
33 


514  THE   WONDERFUL  YEAR. 

His  servants  and  embassadors  ;  her  members,  His  sons  and 
daughters  ;  and  yet  when  His  Son,  the  brightness  of  His 
glory,  and  the  express  image  of  His  person,  calls  himself 
especially  the  Son  of  man  —  not  of  men,  much  less  of  a 
class  of  men,  and  that  white  men,  but  the  Son  of  MAN  ; 
when  His  Spirit  orders  His  servant  to  declare  to  the  Churches 
that  in  Christ  Jesus  the  middle  wall  of  partition  is  broken 
down  ;  that  in  Him  there  is  neither  Greek  nor  Jew,  Barbarian 
nor  Scythian,  bond  nor  free,  male  nor  female  ;  when  He 
forbids  the  setting  off  one  portion  of  the  Church  by  itself 
for  any  outward  distinctions  ;  against  the  words  of  Christ, 
the  teachings  of  the  apostles,  the  lessons  of  history,  the 
testimony  of  every  conscience  in  the  sight  of  God,  the 
Church  in  America  gives  herself  earnestly  to  the  support  of 
this  heaven-hated  sin.  She  compels  these  her  brethren  and 
sisters  to  form  Churches  of  their  own.  She  separates  God's 
ministers,  if  the  least  tinged  w.ith  this  complexion  into  con- 
ferences by  themselves.  If  any  of  these  Christians  come 
into  her  Brahmin  assemblies,  she  hastens  to  commit  the  very 
sin  that  James  rebukes,  and  has  "the  faith  of  the  Lord 
Jesus  Christ,  the  Lord  of  glory,  with  respect  of  persons," 
saying  unto  his  brother,  often  of  the  very  complexion  of 
James  and  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  "  Stand  thou  there,  or  sit 
here  under  my  footstool."  How  those  holy  words  rebuke 
our  haughty  sin  !  "  If  ye  fulfill  the  royal  law  according  to 
the  Scripture,  Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbor  as  thyself,  ye 
do  well.  But  if  ye  have  respect  of  persons,  ye  commit 
sin,  and  are  convinced  of  the  law  as  transgressors."  Then 
comes  that  dreadful  imprecation,  so  awfully  fulfilled  upon 
the  apostate  Churches  of  the  South,  so  fearfully  experienced 
in  our  own  griefs  and  calamities  :  "  For  he  shall  have  judg- 
ment without  mercy  that  hath  showed  no  mercy." 

0,  that  the  Church  would  arise  and  wash  herself  of  this 
abomination  !  She  should  instantly  invite  her  despised 
brethren  to  sit  in  her  exalted  seats.  She  should  abolish 


SECOND  ELECTION  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN.      515 

the  iniquity  known  only  to  Protestant  America,  the  colored 
Church.  She  should  invite  all  those  whom*  God  has  called 
to  serve  at  her  altars,  which  are  not  hers,  but  His.  She 
should  throw  her  mighty  influence  against  this  cruel  and 
false  prejudice,  and  drive  it  from  the  land.  She  should 
proclaim  the  great  doctrine  of  the  Bible,  the  central  doc- 
trine of  the  Cross,  the  unity,  the  fraternity  of  man,  and 
should  declare  that  what  God  hath  put  together  man  shall 
not  put  asunder.  Then,  and  then  only,  will  God's  smile 
and  benediction  rest  upon  her.  Then  shall  she  go  forth, 
not  as  now,  to  feeble  victories  and  frequent  defeats,  but 
to  constant,  glorious,  and  increasing  triumphs.  Scrip- 
tural holiness  will  spread  rapidly  over  all  the  land,  and  the 
coming  of  Christ  speedily  redden  the  divine  horizon. 

To  this  high  and  heavenly  work  the  great  election  calls 
us.  This  grand  future  opens  its  celestial  vistas  to  our 
waiting  eyes.  Union,  emancipation,  democracy,  the  triad 
of  triumphant  principles,  will  insure  the  unification,  the 
liberation,  the  fraternization  of  America.  Her  sons,  of 
whatever  hue,  -shall  wear  her  honors  of  whatever  hight. 
Sella  Martin  will  be  the  popular  pastor  of  a  popular  Church, 
having  no  taint  in  its  composition  of  the  present  bitterness 
of  Christians  against  their  better  brethren,  but  composed 
indiscriminately  of  those  who,  though  of  many  complexions, 
are  of  one  Lord,  one  faith,  one  baptism.  John  S.  Rock  will 
sit  as  judge  where  now  not  one  of  his  race  can  sit  as  a 
juror  even  when  those  of  their  own  color  are  on  trial  for 
their  life;  and  the  perfection  of  justice  will  be  consummated, 
and  God  the  Judge  of  all,  be  satisfied  then,  and  then  only, 
when  one  of  this  blood  whom  our  late  Chief-Justice  declared 
had  no  rights,  shall  occupy  his  seat  as  the  administrator  of 
equal  rights  to  all  the  land.  Such  a  one  is  the  Queen's 
highest  judicial  representative  in  Jamaica  to-day.  Such  will 
be  America's  in  Washington  to-morrow. 

Such  are  some  of  the  results  and  obligations  which  spring 


516  THE   WONDERFUL   YEAR. 

from  that  national  decree.  The  work  is  not  yet  accom- 
plished. Our  brothers  yet  pine  in  prison-houses,  and  suffer 
unto  death  on  the  bloody  field.  The  foe  is  yet  stiff-necked 
and  rebellious.  It  may  be  long  ere  the  high  lands  of  per- 
petual peace  are  reached.  We  may  see  days  as  dark  as  any 
which  have  covered  us.  Yet  the  end  is  sure.  The  grand 
uprising  assures  its  coming.  Does  it  also  that  higher,  that 
diviner  end  to  which  the  whole  creation  moves  ?  Will  the 
nation,  will  the  Church,  will  every  Christian,  every  minister, 
every  man  gird  himself  for  this  greater  task  ?  If  so,  that 
higher  glory  will  speedily  dawn.  The  sun  will  rise  that 
knows  no  setting.  The  kingdom  of  Christ  will  be  estab- 
lished. The  whole  earth,  one  family,  will  dwell  in  Him, 
knit  together  in  love,  in  labor,  in  faith,  in  joy  ;  while  over 
it  all  will  bend  the  cloud  of  witnesses,  with  celestial  faces, 
the  martyred  and  sainted  dead  of  every  age  and  clime,  not 
the  least  in  honor  and  happiness  those  of  our  own  age  and 
clime,  reliving  happiest  lives  in  their  more  saintly  children, 
the  inheritors  of  their  sacrifices,  their  grace,  their  renown. 

"  For  all  they  thought,  and  loved,  and  did, 
And  hoped,  and  suffered,  is  but  seed 
Of  what  in  these  is  flower  and  fruit." 


THE  YIAL  POURED  OUT  ON  THE  SEAT 
OF  THE  BEAST.* 


AND  THE  FIFTH  ANGEL  POURED  OUT  HIS  VIAL  UPON  THE  SEAT  OF  THE 
BEAST  ;  AND  HIS  KINGDOM  WAS  FULL  OF  DARKNESS  J  AND  THEY 
GNAWED  THEIR  TONGUES  FOR  PAIN,  AND  BLASPHEMED  THE  GOD 
OF  HEAVEN  BECAUSE  OF  THEIR  PAINS  AND  THEIR  SORES,  AND  RE- 
PENTED NOT  OF  THEIR  DEEDS."  —  Revelation  xvi.  10,  11. 

E  have  often  been  summoned  to  the  sanctuary,  in 
the  progress  of  the  great  controversy  so  near  its 
end,  at  times  to  exult,  but  chiefly  to  mourn.  We 
have  been  constrained  to  set  forth  the  national  sin 
and  the  national  danger ;  to  point  to  the  cloud  charged 
with  God's  thunderbolts,  that  hung  black  and  fiery  over  a 
vain  and  careless  land,  and  to  urge  upon  the  Church  and  the 
nation  the  tears,  the  words,  the  deeds  of  repentance.  We 
have  seen  that  cloud  gather  blackness  as  the  nation  and  the 
Church  went  plunging  from  sin  to  sin,  until  at  last  it  broke, 
forth  in  such  a  storm  as  has  not  fallen  upon  any  land  since 
the  fiery  shower  fell  upon  Sodom.  Under  that  cloud,  through 
that  sea,  we  have  waded  forward,  slowly  and  tremblingly, 

*  A  sermon  preached  in  Boston  on  the  occasion  of  the  Fall  of  Charles- 
ton, March  5,  18G5. 

(517) 


518  THE   VIAL  POURED   OUT. 

stumbling  often  in  the  mire  of  our  own  corruptions,  refus- 
ing often  to  listen  to  the  command  of  God,  which  ordered 
us  onward,  trusting  in  arms  of  flesh,  in  compromises,  in 
pride,  in  self,  in  sin.  But  as  these  fancied  helps  broke  under 
the  weight  with  which  our  weakness  compelled  us  to  burden 
them,  we  found  ourselves  sinking,  with  a  faintness  almost 
unto  death,  upon  the  only  Arm  that  could  save.  The  unwel- 
comed  duty  sounded  dreary  as  a  funeral  knell  in  our  fright- 
ened ears,  and  only  to  preserve  ourselves  from  destruction 
did  we  heed  its  hated  summons.  A  merciful  God  granted 
us  salvation  even  under  such  undeserving  circumstances. 
Though  with  great  and  sore  chastisements,  with  misery  and 
death  multiplied  manifold,  He  saved  us  from  utter  exter- 
mination. He  is  bringing  us  out  into  a  wealthy  place. 

We  are,  we  hope,  on  the  verge  of  complete  victory.  The 
last  steps  to  this  divine  consummation  are  being  taken. 
One  more,  and  the  goal  is  reached.  That  step  must,  ere 
long,  follow,  and  the  arch-rebel  flees  for  life  through  the 
regions  where  for  years  he  has  ruled  in  power  and  great 
glory,  and  where  he  fancied  his  glory  was  to  be  perpetual. 
In  the  progress  of  these  achievements  we  have  reached  one 
event  that  ought  not  to  pass  unnoticed.  The  fall  of  Charles- 
ton will  be  more  memorable  to  the  future  student  of  this 
war  than  that  of  any  other  city.  Its  capture  will  surpass 
in  interest  that  of  all  its  rivals  in  iniquity,  from  New  Orleans 
to  Richmond.  In  the  ruin  that  has  overwhelmed  it,  God 
has  written  out  in  the  eyes  of  all  the  world  His  just  dis- 
pleasure, His  inevitable  vengeance  against  sinners.  In 
dwelling  upon  this  theme  we  are  raised  to  the  hights  of  the 
divinest  truth,  where  the  dread  vision  of  a  sovereign  God, 
exercising  His  power  in  justly  punishing  willful,  persistent, 
and  awful  transgressors,  stands  forth  before  our  awe-struck 
eyes.  The  angels  of  His  vengeance  are  flying  in  the  midst 
of  heaven.  The  vials  of  His  wrath  are  poured  upon  the  air. 
We  see  the  fearful  devastations  ;  we  see  the  Lord,  strong 


FALL   OF   CHARLESTON.  519 

and  mighty,  sad,   and  solemn,   and  serene,  quietly  casting 
His  enemies  into  destruction. 

Let  us  draw  near  this  mount  that  burneth  with  fire,  that 
is  enshrouded  with  blackness,  that  trembles,  and  rocks  be- 
neath the  footsteps  of  a  descending  God.  Standing  afar  off 
we  behold  the  fearful  spectacle.  As  the  shells  drop  bursting 
upon  the  doomed  town,  it  seems  as  if  they  were  lightnings 
darting  from  the  very  heavens.  That  cannon's  roar  is  but 
the  muttering  of  the  voice  of  God  in  angry  thunder.  As 
Abraham,  from  the  distant  hills  of  Hebron,  beheld  the  smoke 
of  Sodom  go  up  as  the  smoke  of  a  furnace,  so  may  we  be- 
hold the  smoking  ruins  of  the  haughtiest  and  wickedest  town 
that  has  existed  in  this  generation  on  the  face  of  the  whole 
earth.  Nowhere  has  there  been  such  sin,  nowhere  such  just 
and  terrible  punishment. 

In  considering  this  subject,  let  us  study  more  closely  the 
sin  and  punishment  of  this  city,  and  draw  from  this  divine 
act  such  lessons  of  national  and  individual  duty  as  it  is  in- 
tended to  teach. 

I.  Its  sin.  The  Seat  of  the  Beast.  No  place  in  modern 
history  has  achieved  so  infamous  distinction  as  the  city  of 
Charleston.  Rome  is  supposed  by  many  to  be  in  the  eye 
of  the  revelator  when  he  wrote  this  vision.  That  city  has 
truly  been  drunk  with  the  blood  of  the  saints.  It  has  been 
full  of  pride,  and  malice,  and  murder.  Its  inquisition  stands 
beside  its  cathedral.  Tortures  fill  its  walls  with  stifled 
cries.  Dungeons  and  death  bury  the  victims  of  liberty  and 
truth  alive  in  their  ponderous  and  marble  jaws.  It  has  sent 
its  emissaries  and  influence  throughout  the  world,  and  re- 
peated its  pride  and  cruelty  in  every  clime  and  age.  Yet 
Rome  has  never  equalled  Charleston  in  crime.  Paris  is  a 
worldly,  sensual,  wicked  town.  It  fosters  vanity  and  vice. 
It  is  the  seat  of  a  ruler  who  is  subtle,  comprehensive,  active, 
bold.  lie  marches  forth  his  armies  into  Italy  and  Mexico 
to  subdue  liberty  in  the  name  of  Liberty.  It  is  the  seat  of 


520  THE  VIAL  POURED   OUT. 

the  most  powerful  foe  of  European  rights  that  Europe  con- 
tains. Yet  Paris  is  Paradise  compared  with  Charleston. 

London  is  a  mighty  mass  of  swollen  wealth  and  pride, 
poverty  and  corruption.  She  keeps  millions  of  her  natives 
poor,  ignorant  and  disfranchised,  downtrodden  and  despised, 
that  bloated  thousands  may  strut  the  lordlier.  The  crime 
of  London,  as  the  centre  of  the  ruling  forces  of  England, 
is  written  with  the  point  of  a  diamond.  It  will,  unless  it 
repents,  assuredly  feel  the  awful  judgments  of  God.  Yet 
London  is  heaven  by  the  side  of  Charleston. 

The  metropolitan  city  of  America  is  far  from  being  perfect 
before  God.  It  is  given  into  the  hands  of  wicked  men  — 
plundered  by  its  officials,  abandoned  to  pleasure,  to  avarice, 
to  crime.  And  yet  New  York  is  spotless  before  the  little 
city  by  the  sluggish  streams  and  amid  the  sultry  marshes 
of  Carolina.  She  is  preeminently  the  Seat  of  the  Beast. 

What  is  the  pride  of  London  or  of  Rome  to  hers  ?  They 
boast,  the  one  of  its  commercial,  the  other  of  its  spiritual 
supremacy.  They  despise  others.  Their  population  is 
largely  paupers  or  beggars.  Their  political  prisons  yet 
immure  or  threaten  the  lovers  of  liberty  with  their  hated 
walls.  But  they  do  not  forbid  the  lowly  citizens  from  ac- 
quiring the  rudiments  of  knowledge.  They  do  not  compel 
them  to  work  without  any  wages.  Their  leading  merchants 
do  not  take  these  rewardless  toilers  to  their  centers  of  trade, 
causing  them  to  mount  the  auction-block,  and,  sitting  haiigh- 
tily  around,  despite  the  strong  crying  and  tears  of  their  vic- 
tims, knock  them  down  to  the  highest  bidder. 

The  Jews'  quarter  at  Rome  is  nightly  shut  with  iron  gates ; 
but  its  occupants  are  not  rung  to  their  dens  by  the  bells  of 
St.  Peter's,  nor  is  one  of  them  who  is  found  without  seized 
and  cast  into  prison,  horribly  scourged,  and  more  horribly 
sold  into  bondage.  They  are  not  subject  to  unutterable 
crime,  boastingly  wreaked  upon  them  by  their  disdainful 
lords  and  owners.  They  are  not  shipped  in  chains,  or  driven 


FALL  OF  CHARLESTON.  521 

across  the  land  to  distant  hovels,  torn  from  loving  hearts, 
and  cast  into  a  fiery  furnace,  whose  flames  burn  with  intol- 
erable fierceness,  though  the  Son  of  God  walks  with  them 
in  its  midst.  These  horrors  of  horrors  were  reserved  for 
Protestant  America,  for  more  Protestant  Charleston.  One 
third  of  her  population  have  been  subjected  to  these  direful 
cruelties.  They  walked  by  stately  school-houses  which  they 
could  never  enter.  They  were  driven  forth  to  daily  tasks 
for  which  they  received  no  wages.  They  were  compelled  to 
hasten  to  their  huts  and  rags  at  the  stroke  of  the  evening 
bell  on  pain  of  punishment  and  the  lash.  They  were  the 
victims  of  immeasurable  crimes,  which  God  and  hell  can 
only  punish.  They  were  marched  through  the  central  street 
in  the  heart  of  the  city,  into  a  building  with  "  Mart " 
rightly  stamped  upon  its  front.  It  needed  no  prefix,  as  it 
was  the  chief,  in  fact,  the  only  trade  of  the  city,  all  others 
centering  in  this  traffic  in  slaves  and  the  souls  of  men. 
Here  they  were  driven  up  and  down  a  platform,  sixty  feet 
in  length,  to  show  ofl'  their  points  to  their  critical  buyers. 
Here,  in  smaller  rooms,  they  were  blushingly  exposed  to 
the  unblushing  eyes  of  their  own  fathers  and  brothers.* 
Hence  they  tottered,  trembling  with  anguish  and  despair, 
to  their  new  fields  of  toil,  and  terror,  and  most  welcome 
death. 

What  city  has  such  a  record  ?  "Where  has  the  Seat  of 
the  Beast  been  so  clearly  established  ?  We  look  abroad  for 
this  fulfillment  of  the  Book  of  Revelation.  We  find  it  at 
our  own  door.  The  Bible  is  not  a  prophecy  of  Babylon  x>r 
Rome  alone,  but  of  America,  of  the  United  States  ;  not  of 
yesterday,  but  of  to-day.  Here  and  now  is  the  vial  poured 
forth  on  the  Seat  of  the  Beast. 

But  though  in  distinction  from  European  and  even  heathen 
capitals,  this  city  is'  by  merit  raised  to  her  bad  eminence,  it 
may  be  asked,  How  is  she  the  superior  of  her  sisters  in  sin  ? 
Is  not  Savannah,  or  Mobile,  or  New  Orleans,  all  flourishing 


522  THE   VIAL   POURED   OUT. 

depots  of  cotton  and  humanity,  her  equal  ?  Is  not  Rich- 
mond, above  all  other  places,  the  breeder  and  the  seller 
of  human  flesh  and  soul,  from  whose  wharves  and  depots 
hundreds  went  weekly  to  their  living  graves, — is  she  not 
deeper  than  Charleston  in  the  gulf  of  transgression,  and  will 
she  not  be  in  that  of  perdition  ?  Nay,  these  associates  were 
subordinates,  not  equals. 

She  was  the  chief  in  sin,  because  she  threw  around  the 
iniquity  the  threefold  robe  of  civil,  and  social,  and  religious 
character.  She  made  slavery  her  idea.  To  it  her  ablest 
minds  devoted  their  ablest  powers.  By  the  pen,  in  the 
forum,  on  the  bench,  from  the  pulpit,  they  justified,  they 
glorified,  they  deified  Slavery.  From  the  beginning  they 
exhibited  this  tendency.  They  erased  from  the  Declaration 
the  words  Virginia  inserted  that  reflected  upon  the  slave 
trade.  They  inserted  in  the  Constitution  the  words  that 
Virginia  sought  to  erase,  which  gave  Slavery  the  protection 
of  the  national  flag,  and  raised  it  from  a  local  and  limited, 
and  therefore  dying  crime,  to  a  national  and  dominant  insti- 
tution. They  avowed  their  purpose,  despite  these  conces- 
%ions,  to  destroy  the  Union  that  protected  their  demon, 
because  it  did  not  promise  to  propagate  it.  They  sought 
to  break  its  bands  more  than  fifty  years  ago ;  and  more  than 
thirty,  lifted  the  standard  of  revolt,  professedly  in  the  inter- 
est of  the  tariff,  actually  then,  as  now,  in  that  of  slavery. 
Failing  in  this,  the  State  set  about  the  nationalizing  of  the 
accursed  thing.  She  made  her  chosen  son  Secretary  of  State, 
and  through  him  declared,  with  the  approval  of  the  govern- 
ment, that  Slavery  was  the  corner-stone  of  the  American 
Republic.  In  its  interests  her  representatives  wrought  un- 
tiringly, and  wove  the  web  they  meant  for  her  coronation, 
but  which  has  become  her  shroud. 

She  first  saw  the  man-child  of  Abolitionism,  and  sought 
its  destruction  in  its  cradle.  She  drove  the  gray-haired 
representative  of  human  rights  violently  from  her  doors. 


THE   FALL   OF  CHARLESTON.  523 

She  gagged  those  who  raised  a  voice  in  its  defence  in  the 
halls  of  the  Union.  She  struck  down  with  the  bludgeon 
its  senatorial  defenders.  She  challenged  its  representatives 
to  mortal  combat.  Her  clergy  rent  every  Church  in  twain, 
that  would  not  bow  the  knee  to  her  Baal.  She  first  leaped 
up  in  revolt  when  the  people  had  decreed  that  her  infamous 
reign  should  cease.  She  avowed  her  purpose  to  reopen  the 
slave  trade,  and  to  make  the  ocean  a  Styx,  swarming  with 
worse  than  Charon's  boats  —  even  those  that  conveyed  none 
to  Elysium,  all  to  Tartarus. 

Well  may  she  be  called  the  Seat  of  the  Beast.  Well  may 
she  stand  forth  in  history  beside,  jiay,  before,  Egypt,  Bab- 
ylon, Rome,  whoever  enslaved  the  people  of  God  and  ex- 
ulted in  their  hideous  deeds.  They  sinned  against  little 
light ;  she  against  much.  They  were  the  children  of  dark- 
ness ;  she  of  the  light.  They  fell  from  earth  ;  she  from 
heaven.  They  entered  the  grave;  she  hell. 

But,  if  great  is  her  sin,  great  also  is  her  punishment. 
The  Vial  is  poured  out  on  the  Seat  of  the  Beast.  Such 
destruction  has  visited  no  other  center  of  the  rebellion. 
Her  servile  vassal,  the  capital  of  the  State  she  controlled, 
has  fallen  justly  into  a  like  burning  grave.  But  she  alone 
of  the  rebellious  cities  has  seen,  or  is  likely  to  see,  destruc- 
tion. New  Orleans  lost  nothing  but  her  chains.  Savannah, 
Nashville,  Natchez  are  unharmed.  Richmond  may  share  her 
fate,  but  will  probably  remain  entire,  a  monument  of  the 
persistence  of  arms,  not  of  ideas.  Virginia,  the  seat  of  the 
traffic  in  slaves,  and  Charleston,  the  seat  of  the  influence 
of  slavery,  have  felt  the  heaviest  the  hand  of  God.  Her 
wharves  are  empty.  Her  palaces  deserted,  dismantled,  and 
torn  from  top  to  bottom  with  the  plunging  shell.  Her  own 
sons,  in  the  rage  of  their  despair,  turned  their  shotted  guns 
upon  her,-  cast  the  torch  amid  her  inflammable  cotton  and 
more  inflammable  gunpowder,  and  by  one  stroke  destroyed 
both  of  the  props  on  which  she  trusted  for  success  in  arms. 


524  THE  VIAL   POURED   OUT. 

Her  citizens  cared  nothing  for  the  miserable  poor  that  still 
sought  shelter  there  ;  nothing  for  her  ancestral  name,  noth- 
ing for  her  still  existing  wealth.  Like  the  progeny  of  Sin 
and  Death,  whose  kindred  they  are,  they  "  gnaw  her  bowels 
for  repast."  They  even  rejoice  in  her  ruin.  How  their 
hearts  must  have  sunk  within  them  as  they  fled  trembling 
and  astonished,  by  night  and  by  day,  leaving  the  seat  of 
their  pomp  and  pride  to  the  foot  of  the  conqueror.  Surely 
the  bitterness  of  death  cannot  surpass,  hardly  can  equal, 
the  agony  of  shame,  remorse,  and  rage,  every  passion 
but  penitence  that  blazed  in  their  yet  haughty  and  hating 
souls.  "  Their  kingdom  was  full  of  darkness.  They  gnawed 
their  tongues  for  pain,  and  blasphemed  the  God  of  heaven, 
because  of  their  pains  and  their  sores,  and  most  truly 
'  repented  not  of  tlieir  deeds.1  ' 

How  faithfully  doth  the  seer  depict  her  doom :  "Her  sins 
have  reached  unto  heaven  and  God  hath  remembered  her 
iniquities.  In  the  cup  which  she  hath  filled,  He  hath  filled 
to  her  double."  The  potion  she  has  so  long  poured  down 
her  innocent  children  she  is  compelled  to  drink,  even  to  the 
dregs  thereof.  "  How  much  she  hath  glorified  herself  and 
lived  deliciously,  so  much  are  torment  and  sorrow  given  her. 
For  she  said  in  her  heart,  I  sit  a  queen  ;  I  am  no  widow,  and 
shall  see  no  sorrow.  Therefore  have  her  plagues  come  in 
one  day.  Death,  and  mourning,  and  famine,  and  she  is  utter- 
ly burned  with  fire,  for  strong  is  the  Lord  God  who  judgeth 
her.  Rejoice  over  her,  thou  heaven,  and  ye  holy  apostles 
and  prophets,  for  God  hath  avenged  you  on  her." 

No  such  destruction  has  overwhelmed  a  sinful  power 
since  the  French  nobility,  gorged  with  the  blood  of  their 
people,  went  down  in  the  night  of  terror.  Nay,  they  fell  less, 
for  they  had  sinned  less.  They  have  sunk  like  the  angel's 
millstone  into  the  sea,  and  they  shall  be  found  no  more  at 
all.  Their  mighty  names  have  become  titles  of  weakness 
and  dishonor.  Their  Barnwells,  and  Rhetts,  and  Hamp- 


THE   FALL   OF   CHARLESTON.  525 

tons,  and  Haynes,  and  Prestons,  pipe  and  whistle  in  the 
ghostly  sound.  Poor  and  fugitive,  they  apprehend  the  feel- 
ings of  those  of  their  slaves  who  have  fled  in  like  fear  and 
trembling  from  their  enraged  pursuit.  "  With  what  measure 
ye  mete  it  shall  be  measured  to  you  again,"  must  sound 
sadly  in  their  painful  ears.  It  is  no  bloodhound's  cry  they 
hear,  but  the  tramp  of  armed  men,  the  roar  of  hostile  cannon, 
the  crackling  of  burning  roof-trees,  the  shouts  of  liberated 
slaves.  These  make  doleful  music  to  their  exiled  steps. 
They  go  a  way  they  shall  not  return.  They  shall  continue 
powerless  names.  As  the  Tory  rulers  of  Massachusetts,  the 
Olivers  and  Hutchinsons,  fell  into  utter  nothingness  with 
the  fall  of  their  State,  so  shall  these  be  in  South  Carolina  as 
though  they  had  never  been.  They  shall  wander,  seeking 
bread  from  the  slave  they  have  sold.  They  shall  sink  to 
the  bottom  of  the  society  they  have  ruled.  Their  glory  has 
vanished  away.  Thus  has  God  poured  out  His  vial  on  the 
Seat  of  the  Beast.  Thus  has  its  sin  found  it  out,  and  its 
fate  overtaken  it. 

But  this  punishment  had  not  been  complete  without  the 
instrument  by  which  it  was  perfected  were  considered. 
They  were  not  captured  by  the  Western  troops  marching  a 
hundred  miles  behind  them,  nor  by  white  troops  galloping 
up  to  the  town.  Their  own  slaves  were  left  to  receive  the 
keys  of  the  city,  and  to  walk  her  streets  as  conquerors. 
Through  them  alone  can  her  mayor  find  access  to  the  provost 
marshal.  They  alone  preserve  its  safety  by  night  and  its 
quiet  by  day.  The  slave  is  the  ruler  of  the  land.  A  few 
whites  are  associated  with  him,  but  he  is  the  substantial 
master.  From  his  hands  the  impoverished  tyrants  must  sue 
for  daily  bread.  How  wonderfully  is  the  Word  of  God  ful- 
filled !  His  truth,  His  ways,  His  word,  are  the  same  yester- 
day, to-day,  and  forever.  "  The  sons  of  them  that  afflicted 
Thee,"  yea,  they  themselves,  "  shall  come  bending  unto 
thee  ;  and  all  they  that  despised  thee  shall  bow  themselves 
down  at  the  soles  of  thy  feet." 


526  THE  VIAL   POURED   OUT. 

We  pause,  oppressed  by  the  sacred  lesson.  What  are  its 
teachings  ? 

1.  It  teaches  us  that  no  greatness  is  aught  against  God. 
How  these  men  once  boasted  !     How  they  defied  the  nation 
that  made  them  great !     With  what  insolent  self-confidence 
they  paraded  the  streets  of  their  slave  metropolis  !     Not  the 
patrician  of  Venice  who  stood  beneath  the  corridors  of  the 
Doge's  palace,  where  no  plebeian  was  allowed  to  walk,  was 
so  contemptuous  as  the    patricians  of   Charleston  to  their 
white  and  black  slaves.     But  as  Austrian  soldiers  freely 
tread  those  desolated  pavements,  so  do  the  slaves  of  Charles- 
ton march  where  late  their  masters  rode. 

Great  and  mighty  are  thy  judgments,  0  Lord  God  of 
Hosts.  Thou  bringest  man  to  destruction,  and  sayest,  Re- 
turn, ye  children  of  men.  His  pride,  as  his  years,  are  as 
nothing  before  Thee.  At  Thy  rebuke  he  flees.  At  the 
breath  of  Thy  nostrils  he  vanishes  away. 

2.  It  teaches  us  the  regeneration  of  the  earth.     Charles- 
ton is  not  to  be  destroyed.     It  is  to  be  rebuilt  in  righteous- 
ness.    The  church  of  St.   Michael,    so   long  perverted  to 
hideous  uses  of  pride  and  sin,  will  become  the  ministrant  of 
truth   and  love.     That  name   is    not   inapt.     Michael,  the 
archangel,  triumphed  over  the  dragon.     It  was  the  favorite 
picture  of  ancient  and  enslaved  Christendom.     It  betokened 
their  deliverance  from   the  grasp  of  their  tyrants.     So  does 
it  those  who  have  heard  for  generations  its  bells  with  horror. 
To  them  Michael   may  mean  their   deliverer,  the  slayer  of 
the  dragon  of  Slavery.     He  has  fought  with  the  devil  for  the 
souls  and  bodies  of  these  children  of  the  Father,  and  has 
won  their  salvation. 

These  freedmen  shall  renew  that  beautiful  region  in 
righteousness.  They  shall  not  build  and  another  inhabit. 
They  shall  not  plant  and  another  eat,  as  they  have  for  these 
hundreds  of  years,  but  they  themselves  shall  long  enjoy  the 
work  of  their  hands.  Those  excellent  school-houses  their 


THE   FALL   OF   CHARLESTON.  527 

children  shall  enter.  In  those  spacious  churches  they  shall 
worship  a  God  .who  shall  be  well  pleased  with  their  humble, 
happy  offerings.  Those  marts  shall  flourish  in  legitimate 
traffic.  They  shall  be  rulers  where  they  have  been  slaves. 
Happy,  happy,  happy  day  !  Already  it  breaks  upon  them. 
They  look  on  their  deliverers  as  the  Messiah  himself.  And 
they  are.  Jesus  is  yet  walking  the  earth  incarnate  in  this 
Republic,  breaking  these  heavy  chains,  opening  these  prison 
doors,  and  bringing  to  these,  His  children,  the  great  and 
acceptable  year  of  the  Lord. 

3.  Take  warning  from  this  awful  punishment.  If  God 
spares  not  these,  no  more  will  He  spare  you,  though  He 
bear  long  with  you.  With  these  He  has  borne  for  two 
hundred  years.  Their  iniquity  is  full.  The  day  of  ven- 
geance is  come.  And  yet  they  are  unrepentant.  No  sorrow 
fills  those  sinners'  souls  for  their  dreadful  guilt.  Those 
ministers,  - —  Methodist,  Presbyterian,  Episcopalian,  Baptist, 
Papal,  —  are  as  bitter  in  their  hatred  of  the  first  law  of  the 
Gospel  as  when  they  flourished  in  power  and  authority  at 
the  head  of  the  community.  We  have  seen  no  penitent 
bishop  of  that  apostate  Church.  We  have  heard  no  churches 
moaning  for  their  sins.  They  faithfully  follow  the  words  of 
our  text:  "  They  gnaw  their  tongues  for  pain,  and  blaspheme 
the  God  of  heaven,  because  of  their  pains  and  their  sores, 
and  repent  not  of  their  deeds/'  Beware  lest  you  fall  under 
like  shocks,  with  like  anguish  and  like  impenitence.  We 
may  sin  as  fearfully  against  God  here  as  they  there.  In 
your  bodies,  in  your  souls,  in  pride,  in  passion,  in  unbelief, 
in  carnal-mindedness,  in  pursuit  of  the  world.  You  may 
reject  Christ,  and  be  rejected  of  Him.  As  a  church  member, 
you  may  fall  into  the  lowest  h^ll.  Many  of  them  were  such. 
So  were  the  Israelites  of  the  wilderness.  So  were  Caiphas 
and  Judas. ,  So  may  you  be.  Watch,  pray,  strive,  agonize, 
or  you  will  plunge  into  sin,  into  everlasting  destruction. 
Behold,  the  Judge  standeth  at  the  door  ! 


528  THE   VIAL   POURED   OUT. 

4.  Remember  that  this  great  work  is  not  accomplished. 
The  saddest,  most  solemn,  most  religious  message  ever 
delivered  by  an  American  President,  was  spoken  at  his  in- 
auguration by  the  great  and  good  man,  who,  for  the  second 
term,  has  begun  his  arduous  duties.  Let  me  read  to  you 
some  of  those  weighty  words. 

"  Fondly  do  we  hope,  fervently  do  we  pray,  that  this 
mighty  scourge  of  war  may  speedily  pass  away.  Yet  if  God 
wills  that  it  continue  until  all  the  wealth  piled  by  the 
bondman's  two  hundred  and  fifty  years  of  unrequited  toil 
shall  be  sunk,  and  until  every  drop  of  blood  drawn  with  the 
lash  shall  be  paid  by  another  drawn  with  the  sword,  as  was 
said  three  thousand  years  ago,  so  still  it  must  be  said,  The 
judgments  of  the  Lord  are  true  and  righteous  altogether." 

How  they  infold  the  past,  the  present,  the  future.  How 
they  point  to  our  only  success  —  God  and  duty.  Our  armies 
in  the  field,  our  legislation  in  Congress,  our  principles  at 
home,  our  God  in  all  of  these,  through  them  all,  above  them 
all  —  these  are  our  salvation.  Only  by  adhering  to  the 
right  shall  we  triumph  —  the  whole  right.  We  must 
uproot  from  our  hearts  that  most  unchristian  and  inhuman 
sentiment  which  makes  us  distinguish  between  man  and 
man,  between  Christian  brethren,  on  account  of  certain  out- 
ward traits.  These  must  be  swept  away,  or  the  wrath  of 
God  will  again  rest  upon  us.t  The  Seat  of  the  Beast  may 
be  transferred  from  Charleston  to  Boston.  We  may  feel 
this  outpouring  of  divine  displeasure.  May  this  fate  be 
averted  by  our  earnest  embracing  of  the  whole  truth  as  it  is 
in  Jesus.  May  our  victories  speedily  be  consummated,  the 
greater  victory  of  right  be  equally  accomplished,  and  the 
Holy  Spirit  renew  every  heartz  and  all  the  land,  in  the  purity, 
and  peace,  and  brotherhood  of  heaven. 


JEFFERSON    DAYIS    AND    PHARAOH.* 


"  AND  THE  LORD  SAID  UNTO  MOSES,  EISE  UP  EARLY  IN  THE  MORNING, 
AND  STAND  BEFORE  PHARAOH,  AND  SAT  UNTO  HIM,  THUS  SAITH  THE 
LORD  GOD  OF  THE  HEBREWS,  LET  MY  PEOPLE  GO,  THAT  THEY  MAY 

SERVE  ME.  FOR  I  WILL  AT  THIS  TIME  SEND  ALL  MY  PLAGUES  UPON 
THY  HEART,  AND  UPON  THY  SERVANTS,  AND  UPON  THY  PEOPLE;  THAT 
THOU  JTAYEST  KNOW  THAT  THERE  IS  NONE  LIKE  ME  IN  ALL  THE  EARTH. 
FOR  NOW  I  WILL  STRETCH  OUT  MY  HAND,  THAT  I  MAY  SMITE  THEE 
AND  THY  PEOPLE  WITH  PESTILENCE  ;  AND  THOU  SHALT  BE  CUT  OFF 
FROM  THE  EARTH.  AND  IN  VERY  DEED  FOR  THIS  CAUSE  HAVE  I  RAISED 
THEE  UP,  FOR  TO  SHOW  IN  THEE  MY  PO\VER  ;  AND  THAT  MY  NAME 
MAY  BE  DECLARED  THROUGHOUT  ALL  THE  EARTH." Ex,  ix.  13-16. 

ISTORY  sometimes  reproduces  herself  with  pho- 
tographic accuracy.  Past  and  present  then  are 
one.  The  very  man  who  molded  that  dusty  past 
after  his  image  and  likeness,  seems  to  be  stirring 
in  the  disturbed  elements  of  the  present,  and  fashioning 
them  after  the  same  form.  Plutarch  sought  for  such  a  par- 
allel between  the  chief  men  of  Greece  and  Rome.  The 
present  Napoleon  has  set  up  his  great  ancestor  and  the  first 
Caesar  as  of  like  lineaments,  labors,  and,  he  might  have 
added,  fate.  Yet  none  so  strikingly  in  their  rise,  rule,  and 
fall  resemble  each  other  as  Pharaoh  and  Jefferson  Davis. 


*  A  sermon  preached  in  Boston  on  the  occasion  of  the  State  Fast, 
Thursday.  April  12,  1865. 

34  (529) 


530       JEFFERSON  DAVIS  AND  PHARAOH. 

Living  thousands  of  years  apart,  under  different  skies,  insti- 
tutions, and  religions,  they  have  had  a  history  and  will  have 
a  fame  well  nigh  identical.  Their  resemblances  and  con- 
trasts will  be  the  theme  for  our  consideration. 

We  may  properly  engage  in  such  contemplations,  because 
the  hosts  of  our  Pharaoh  are  cast  into  the  sea.  On  the  tri- 
umphant shore  stand  victorious  our  Aaron  and  Moses,  — 
Lincoln  and  Grant ;  with  their  hardly  less  grand  associates, 
Sherman  and  Sheridan,  the  Caleb  and  Joshua  of  the  hour ; 
while  a  rescued  country,  and  the  liberated  millions  for  whose 
especial  deliverance  God  hath  raised  up  both  Pharaoh  and 
Moses,  lift  up  glad  hands  in  exultant  hallelujahs  to  Him 
whose  right  arm  hath  gotten  Him  the  victory. 

With  overpowering  emotions  of  thankfulness  and  praise 
we  crowd  His  courts  to-day.  Our  fasting  is  turned  into 
feasting.  The  bridegroom  is  with  us  —  how  can  we  fast  ? 
The  bands  of  wickedness  are  broken  —  why  should  we  fast  ? 

"  Let  the  hills  clap  their  hands,  let  the  mountains  rejoice, 
Let  all  the  glad  earth  raise  a  jubilant  voice." 

With  our  eyes  fixed  upon  the  ingulfing  waves,  that  have 
drowned  forever  the  great  rebellion  and  its  greater  cause  ; 
fixed  yet  more  steadily  and  gratefully  upon  Him  at  whose 
command  the  waters  disparted  to  let  His  people  go  over  dry 
shod,  and  then  closed  eternally  over  their  mighty  oppres- 
sors, let  us  dwell  upon  the  analogies  our  subject  suggests. 
We  shall  find  in  them  fresh  cause  to  adore  the  wisdom, 
power,  and  goodness  of  Him  who  worketh  all  things  after 
the  counsel  of  His  own  will ;  who,  never  interfering  the 
least  in  the  freedom  of  His  creature,  still  holdeth  the  reins 
of  sovereignty,  and  guideth  the  affairs  of  the  universe. 

The  proper  way  to  contemplate  the  great  struggle,  which 
seems  so  near  its  end,  is  to  take  our  stand  by  the  side  ©f 
God,  and  look  upon  it  from  His  point  of  observation.  We 
have,  as  a  nation,  chiefly  observed  it  from  the  side  of  Union. 


AN   HISTORIC   PARALLEL.  531 

To  us  it  has  been  a  struggle  for  sovereignty,  for  empire,  for 
integrity  of  the  national  domain.  The  Flag  has  been  the 
chief  symbol  of  our  sentiments  and  resolves.  Nationality 
the  inspiring  energy  of  our  souls.  Not  so  with  God.  Our 
nationality  is  of  small  account  with  Him  beside  righteous- 
ness. He  has  inaugurated  and  conducted  the  war  chiefly, 
we  might  almost  say  solely,  in  the  interests  of  Liberty.  He 
allowed,  He  encouraged  our  passion  for  the  Union,  because 
thus  He  could  best  work  out  His  plan  for  emancipation. 

Then,  too,  we  have  dwelt  almost  constantly  upon  the 
rebellious  leaders  and  their  hosts.  Their  policy,  their  pro- 
gress, their  prospects,  have  absorbed  our  minds.  It  is  as 
if  we  studied  the  Mosaic  deliverance  from  the  movements 
of  Pharaoh,  his  ministers  and  his  people.  That  we  never 
do.  We  look  at  it  from  its  Mosaic,  its  divine,  its  slave  side. 
We  study  the  movements  toward  emancipation.  We  see 
Pharaoh  not  aggressive,  but  resisting  the  desires  and  decrees 
of  God.  The  slave  Moses,  not  his  master,  is  the  center 
around  which  those  events  are  organized.  So  should  it  be 
here.  Not  the  slaveholder  but  the  slave,  not  the  rebelling 
armies,  but  the  organizing  troops  of  Freedom ;  not  the  stately 
pronunciamentos  of  Jefferson  Davis,  but  the  prayers  and 
prophecies  of  the  captive,  should  be  now,  will  be  the  future 
nucleus  around  which  this  Thirty  Years'  War  will  inevitably 
revolve.  The  movements  of  abolitionism,  political,  social, 
religious,  military,  from  the  rise  of  Garrison  to  the  consum- 
mation of  Lincoln's  election  and  proclamation,  of  Sherman's 
marches  and  Grant's  victories,  as  well  as  the  hostile  forces 
in  the  Senate,  society,  the  pulpit,  and  the  field,  all  gather 
around  that  Christian  bondman.  They  are  the  chosen  people 
of  God  who  for  three  centuries  have  groaned  in  their  prison- 
houses,  and  whose  liberation  and  exaltation,  not  our  Union 
nor  our  liberties,  are  the  great,  almost  the  sole  cause,  of  the 
outstretching  of  His  arm,  and  the  more  than  Mosaic  miracles 
that  pass  before  our  half-observant  eyes. 


532  JEFFERSON   DAVIS   AND   PHARAOH. 

Taking  our  position,  therefore,  by  His  side,  and  looking 
on  the  war  with  His  eyes,  we  see  it  to  be,  as  all  Europe  sees 
it,  a  war  of  God  for  emancipation. 

Three  difficulties  stood  in  His  way  :  the  words  and  con- 
struction of  the  Constitution  ;  the  aversion  of  the  North  to 
abolitionism,  and  the  purpose  of  the  South  to  prevent  it.  Each 
of  these  seemed  strong-.  All  must  yield,  or  be  crushed  to 
powder  beneath  His  omnipotent  march.  How  can  they  be 
removed  or  reduced  ?  Only  by  strengthening  the  last. 

The  dread  of  touching  the  Constitution  had  become  a  dis- 
ease. The  people  feared  it,  as  our  fathers  did  their  idols  — 
the  work  of  their  own  hands.  They  said,  The  Constitution 
forbids  us  to  touch  slavery  where  it  is.  We  cannot,  we 
will  not,  violate  that  instrument.  The  slaveholders'  will 
alone  compelled  them  to  forget  their  idol  and  fear  God.  They 
or  it  must  die. 

Behind  and  beneath  this  lay  a  horror  of  touching  the 
slave.  "  Emancipation  !  haven't  we  opposed  it  from  the 
beginning?  The  black  man  will  become  our  equal,  our 
master.  He  is  a  brute,  an  ape ;  does  not  want  freedom, 
will  not  work,  will  not  fight."  Mr.  Ten  Eyck,  senator  of 
of  New  Jersey,  declared  in  the  Senate,  after  the  war  had 
begun,  that  if  slavery  was  abolished  in  the  District  of  Co- 
lumbia, the  slaves  would  be  pouring  down  upon  the  North, 
and  his  State  would  not  take  care  of  them.  He  has  just  lost 
his  reelection  because  he  would  not  give  them  their  rights 
in  his  own  State.  This  aversion  was  profound,  was  univer- 
sal. How  could  it  be  overcome  ?  Only  by  the  firmness  of 
the  Southern  purpose.  The  lesser  evil  can  only  be  over- 
come by  strengthening  the  greater,  and  God  gives  it  that 
power.  For  this  purpose  He  raised  up  their  strong  leader, 
and  endowed  him  with  extraordinary  nature,  in  order  that 
against  His  will  these  fears  and  prejudices  of  the  nation 
might  be  dashed  to  pieces,  and  our  glorious  end  be  sub- 
limely accomplished. 


AN   HISTORIC  PARALLEL.  533 

The  study  of  His  character  is,  therefore,  the  study  of  all 
this  gigantic  movement.  It  was  said,  a  year  ago,  "  The 
rebellion  is  Jefferson  Davis.  His  will  is  its  sole  support 
and  life."  It  was  so  from  the  beginning.  It  has  been  more 
and  more  so  to  its  ignominious  end. 

Consider  then,  — 

I.  The  resemblances  between  our  Pharaoh  and  the  one 
who  was  the  needful  point  of  resistance  in  God's  first  war 
for  emancipation. 

II.  The  end  God  had  in  view  in  raising  him  up. 

The  parallel  is  seen  in  their  freedom,  their  character,  their 
work,  and  their  fate. 

1.  They  were  alike  in  freedom  of  action.  For  this  pur- 
pose God  raised  them  up,  that  He  might  show  forth  His 
power  in  them.  Yet  they  themselves  freely  elected  the 
course  they  pursued.  Many  theories  concerning  the  condi- 
tion of  Pharaoh's  will  have  been  propounded  by  students  of 
his  history.  Some  have  ajgued  that  his  freedom  of  will  was 
supernaturally  suspended,  so  that  he  was  a  mere  machine 
worked  by  Almighty  power  for  its  own  ends.  Others  have 
thought  that  he  expressed  the  ordinary  relation  of  every 
man's  will  to  that  of  God,  though  under  extraordinary  cir- 
cumstances of  expansion.  The  last  are  right  in  this  position, 
though  they  err  in  saying  that  this  relation  is  the  actual 
absorption  of  his  volition  into  the  volition  of  God. 

The  truth  may  be  clearly  seen  in  the  parallel  which  is 
before  us.  Jefferson  Davis  has  freely  resisted  the  most 
pressing  and  repeated  appeals  of  God.  Never  has  he  felt 
that  the  mission  he  was  set  to  do  was  one  forced  upon  a 
reluctant  will,  or  one  that  constrained  that  will  to  any  course 
other  than  it  freely  and  enthusiastically  accepted  as  its 
highest,  strongest,  only  choice.  In  him,  as  in  the  great 
Egyptian,  the  divine  intent  was  directly  the  contrary  of 
his  own.  Their  purpose  was  to  aggrandize  themselves, 
each  by  retaining  a  mighty  mass  of  slaves,  the  one  to  pre- 


534  JEFFERSON   DAVIS   AND   PHARAOH. 

serve  and  increase  the  glory  of  his  kingdom,  the  other  to 
found  an  empire  that  should  absorb  the  continent,  and  be, 
as  was  that  of  Pharaoh's  then,  the  leading  power  of  the 
world.  God's  plan  was  to  liberate  His  enslaved  children, 
and  to  employ  them  in  the  extension  of  His  kingdom  through- 
out the  earth.  Their  wills,  then,  are  and  were  precisely 
like  yours  and  mine  —  like  the  humblest  of  their  retainers, 
the  most  degraded  of  their  slaves.  • 

God  gave  them  this  freedom  of  action,  but  gave  it,  as 
He  gives  everything,  subject  to  the  laws  of  its  constitution. 
One  of  those  laws  is,  that  exercise,  in  whatever  direction, 
strengthens  the  faculty  in  that  direction.  Had  they  yielded 
honestly  but  a  little,  they  would  soon  have  yielded  all.  Their 
resistance  intensified  resistance,  so  that  by  the  laws  of  their 
nature,  that  is,  by  God  the  Creator  and  Sustainer  of  all  law, 
they  both  hardened  their  hearts,  and  yet  God  hardened  them 
also.  He  allowed  those  natural  laws  to  work  their  perfect 
work  in  them,  because  that  thus  the  more  fully  could  His 
own  ends  be  accomplished. 

To  go  further  than  this,  is  to  make  God  the  Author  of 
their  deeds,  and  so  of  their  sins.  It  is  to  annihilate  their 
responsibility  and  their  humanity.  It  is  to  make  them  ves- 
sels of  wrath  fitted  for  destruction,  with  no  more  sin  or 
punishment  in  them  than  in  the  fire  which  has  devoured  the 
palaces  of  Charleston  and  Richmond.  Such  is  not  the  teach- 
ing of  Scripture.  Such  is  not  the  feeling  of  every  heart. 
They  are  responsible,  they  have  sinned,  they  are  punished. 
They  are  men  of  like  passions  with  ourselves,  who  have 
rejected  the  counsel  of  God  against  themselves.  With  their 
own  hands  they  bound  themselves,  they  kept  themselves 
bound  to  the  potter's  wheel.  Of  themselves  have  they  al- 
lowed God  to  make  them  vessels  of  wrath  fitted  for  destruc- 
tion. As  they  have  sown,  thus  do  they  also  reap. 

2.   Their  characters  are  alike. 

This  work  is  to  be  accomplished  by  human  agents,  acting 


AN   HISTORIC   PARALLEL.  535 

among  men,  and  according1  to  the  nature  of  man.  It  was  as 
easy  for  God  to  have  taken  up  the  children  of  Israel,  their 
wives  and  their  little  ones,  in  their  beds,  and  to  have  trans- 
ported them  bodily  into  the  land  of  Canaan,  as  it  was  to 
work  the  wonders  that  He  did  for  their  liberation.  He  could 
have  slain  Pharaoh  at  the  beginning  as  easily  as  at  the  end 
of  the  conflict.  He  could  have  so  inspired  the  Egyptians 
with  terror,  or  whelmed  them  in  destruction,  that  they 
would  thrust  out  their  slaves  as  readily  at  the  first  as  at  the 
last.  But  He  never  violates  human  nature  while  working 
with  or  against  it.  He  respects  most  carefully  the  freedom 
of  His  creatures,  whether  He  saves  or  slays  them.  He  had 
two  ends  to  accomplish  —  the  development  of  manhood  in 
His  people,  so  that  they  might  become  fit  for  the  sovereignty 
which  He  designed  for  them,  and  the  destruction  of  Egyp- 
tian pride  and  purpose,  so  that  they  should  voluntarily  let 
His  people  go.  To  achieve  these  ends,  the  progress  of 
events  must  be  gradual.  They  would  not  yield  freely  at 
first,  neither  would  the  slaves  assume  their  rights  and  duties 
and  burdens  at  first  freely.  Moses  found  this  fact  prevent- 
ing his  success,  when  "he  supposed  his  brethren  would  have 
understood  how  that  God  by  His  hand  would  deliver  them  ; 
but  they  understood  not."  How  precisely  similar  was  our 
conduct  to  our  Moses.  There  must,  therefore,  be  one  man 
whose  nature  is  so  firm,  whose  mind  is  so  clear,  that  he 
sees  the  possible  and  intended  end  of  every  movement  in 
the  opposite  direction,  and  who  is  set  like  the  eternal  hills 
to  resist  their  progress.  Upon  that  rock  shall  the  purposes 
of  the  people  be  broken.  Upon  it  shall  those  of  God  be 
established. 

The  characters  of  these  men  are  alike  in  three  respects. 
(1.)  Their  clear  perception  of  the  end  from  their  beginning. 
(2.)  Their  steadiness  of  purpose.  (3.)  Their  power  to  de- 
velop such  strength  and  steadiness  in  others. 

(1.)  Pharaoh,  like  Jefferson  Davis,  saw  that  the  first  step 


536  '    JEFFERSON   DAVIS   AND   PHARAOH. 

toward  emancipation,  if  not  resisted,  would  inevitably  lead 
thither.  When  Moses  asks  for  a  three  days'  camp-meeting 
around  the  base  of  Sinai,  an  old  and  familiar  usage  of  the 
Egyptians,  the  quick-sighted  king  detects  the  whole  scope 
of  the  petition.  He  instantly  answers,  "  Who  is  the  Lord, 
that  I  should  obey  His  voice  to  let  Israel  go  ?  I  know  not 
the  Lord,  neither  will  I  let  Israel  go."  And  when  they 
humbly  renew  their  request,  declaring  "The  God  of  the 
Hebrews  hath  met  with  us  :  let  us  go,  we  pray  thee,  three 
days'  journey  into  the  desert,  and  sacrifice  unto  our  God, 
lest  He  fall  upon  us  with  pestilence  or  with  the  sword ;  " 
he  savagely  retorts,  "Wherefore  do  ye,  Moses  and  Aaron, 
let  the  people  from  their  works.  Get  you  unto  your  bur- 
dens." And  he  instantly  bound  their  burdens  the  heavier, 
ordering  their  overseers  to  take  away  the  straw,  but  not  to 
diminish  the  tale  of  bricks. 

So,  when  the  public  conscience  had  grown  in  this  land 
that  it  began  loudly  to  demand  of  the  slaveholders  the  abo- 
lition of  slavery,  Jefferson  Davis  stood  forth  chief  in  audacity, 
coolness,  and  firmness  to  resist  its  demands,  and  by  the  aid 
of  supple  tools,  among  whom,  alas!  was  our  own  great  statesf- 
man,  he  bound  upon  the  already  heavily-burdened  slave  the 
additional  atrocity  of  the  Fugitive  Slave  Bill.  There  was 
a  feeble  ray  of  relief  before.  If  they  reached  our  borders 
they  were  substantially  free.  Now  the  human  blood-hounds 
scented  them  through  the  streets  of  every  Northern  city, 
and  in  the  lanes  and  fields  of  our  most  rural  communities. 
A  gray-haired  minister  of  Jesus  Christ,  stationed  close  beside 
us,  was  compelled  to  flee  for  his  life,  as  were  the  African 
bishops  Cyril  and  Athanasius  from  Alexandria,  and  Paul 
from  Damascus.  The  cry  rose  yet  more  bitterly  to  heaven. 
Gates  hundreds  of  miles  thick  suddenly  shut  in  upon  them, 
grating  harsh  thunder  in  their  affrighted  ears. 

Each  thus  early  apprehended  the  full  significance  of  the 
movement,  and  sought  to  stifle  it  in  its  birth.  This  per- 


AN   HISTORIC   PARALLEL.  537 

ception  of  the  intent  of  the  Hebrews  was  stimulated  to 
greater  ferocity  with  every  miracle.  So,  since  the  nation 
put  its  authoritative  word  in  the  mouth  of  its  Executive, 
has  the  heart  of  our  Pharaoh  become  the  more  hardened 
against  the  liberation  of  his  slaves.  He  saw  its  end  when 
Mr.  Lincoln  was  elected,  and  avowed  his  purpose  to  resist 
it.  He  seceded  when  as  yet  no  overt  act  had  been  com- 
mitted, and  in  spite  of  our  protestations  of  faithfulness  to 
imaginary  constitutional  demands,  that  were  like  the  beg- 
gings of  Moses  before  the  Lord,  unlike,  in  this  respect,  that 
our  President  made  his  before  Pharaoh ;  a  degradation  Moses 
never  reached.  He  saw  that  allowing  the  Territories  to  be 
free,  was  abolishing  slavery.  The  little  favor  the  Republican 
party  was  constrained  to  beg,  the  occupancy  of  the  wilder- 
ness by  Liberty,  notwithstanding  its  profuse  promises  that 
it  would  not  harm  the  gigantic  sin  where  it  ruled  and  rev- 
eled ;  that  the  fugitive  slave  bill  should  be  yet  more  firmly 
supported ;  that  the  four  millions  of  captives  should  have 
no  hope  of  release,  but  should  be  given  over  to  the  extremest 
cruelty  of  their  oppressors  ;  that  the  coastwise  slave-trade 
should  still  go  forward,  and  the  slave-masters  yet  rule  the 
nation  ;  in  spite  of  the  promise  to  amend  our  Constitution  so 
as  to  prevent  the  Northern  conscience  from  ever  disturbing 
the  iniquity,  the  Pharaoh  of  the  South  saw  the  end.  He 
knew  that  wilderness  inheritance  insured  the  ultimate  pos- 
session of  the  whole  land.  He  knew  the  recognition  of  their 
political  inferiority  must  end  in  their  political  annihilation. 
He  knew  that  acknowledging  the  black  anywhere  as  equal, 
as  would  be  the  case  in  the  recognition  of  Liberia  and 
Hayti,  would  result  in  his  universal  equality.  Therefrom 
he  instantly  and  resolutely  ordered  secession.  lie  visited 
Richmond  and  Charleston,  and  the  other  chief  centers  of  this 
sin,  and  organized  revolt.  He  gave  the  diabolic  enthusiasm 
the  needful  energies  of  his  potent  will. 

(2.)  In  strength  and  steadiness   of  will  they  are  alike. 


538  JEFFERSON   DAVIS   AND   PHARAOH. 

Pharaoh  never  actually  yielded  to  their  petitions.  Several 
times,  when  great  reverses  came  upon  him,  he  felt  like  re- 
lenting a  little.  Once  he  got  so  far  as  to  agree  to  let  them 
go,  providing  they  went  without  their  families  and  their 
flocks  ;  but  even  that  he  repented  of,  and  they  left,  at  last, 
without  any  direct  orders  from  him. 

So  has  it  been  with  our  Pharaoh.  In  some  of  the  great 
reverses  that  have  befallen  his  arms,  he  has  half  inclined  to 
substitute  a  temporary  system  of  serfdom  for  his  pet  horror 
of  slavery.  To  win  the  recognition  of  England  and  France, 
to  secure  needful  help  to  his  armies,  he  has  almost  said, 
"  I  will  give  these  slaves  a  partial  liberty  ;  "  knowing  that 
after  the  crisis  had  passed  he  could  easily  rcsubjugate  them 
to  slavery.  And  once,  when  the  thick  darkness  of  disaster 
covered  his  whole  land,  save  the  cabins  of  the  slaves,  where 
the  light  that  shone  upon  Goshen  was  again  shining,  when 
the  Mississippi  was  lost  and  Georgia  cleft  in  twain,  and  the 
enemy  lay  around  his  capital,  and  darkness  that  could  be 
felt,  that  was  fearfully  felt,  pressed  down  upon  every  rebell- 
ious heart,  then  he  partially  relented.  -Then  he  said,  "  Let 
us  arm  the  slaves,  and  free  those  we  arm."  Not  free  their 
wives  and  children,  but  themselves.  Let  them  go  free  for 
a  little  season  till  this  calamity  be  overpast.  God  repelled 
the  insulting  proposal,  and  prevented  the  attempt.  His 
heart  became  hardened  against  even  this  compliance,  and 
he  awaited  in  sullenness  the  blow  that  annihilated  him.  He 
knew,  military  man  as  he  is,  that  Richmond  must  soon  fall. 
He  knew  that  the  last  stroke  would  soon  be  dealt.  He  had 
seen  these  movements  of  the  Delivering  God  become  more 
and  more  severe.  Savannah  had  fallen,  South  Carolina  had 
been  traversed,  Charleston  and  Columbia  were  in  ashes,  the 
enemy  was  gathering  on  every  side  of  the  doomed  capital ; 
still  he  stood  firm.  He  received  his  death-blow  in  the 
church  of  his  idolatry,  at  the  altars  of  a  false  god,  whom 
he  had  set  up  in  the  place  of  the  true  God  and  our  Savior 


AN  HISTORIC   PARALLEL.  539 

Jesus  Christ,  and  calling  him  by  that  holy  name,  was  fer- 
vently adoring  the  hideous  idol.  At  these  altars  of  a  foul 
and  bloody  Moloch  did  he  fall.  Here  did  the  true  and 
eternal  God  of  liberty  and  love  smite  our  Pharaoh.  Fitting 
was  the  hour  and  spot  of  his  destruction.  As  Caesar  fell 
under  the  statue  of  the  rival  he  had  slain,  as  Napoleon  fell 
on  the  fields  most  consecrated  of  all  in  Europe  to  the  liberty 
he  had  betrayed,  as  Judas  fell  in  the  very  spot  which  the 
price  of  his  treason  was  to  purchase,  so  fell  Jefferson  Davis 
in  the  very  church  that  for  generations  had  set  up  a  false  god 
as  the  true,  and  that  had  steadily  and  rapidly  increased  the 
foulness  and  ferociousness  of  its  idolatry  ;  on  the  Sabbath, 
too,  which  had  been  so  horribly  profaned  by  him  and  his 
with  pretended  worship  of  a  Savior  whose  precepts  they 
had  most  fearfully  despised  and  rejected.  "Just  and  true 
are  Thy  ways,  thou  King  of  Saints." 

Yet  here,  as  in  his  prototype,  he  remained  unshaken.  No 
cry  escaped  those  thin,  pallid  lips ;  no  quivering  of  that  firm- 
set  mouth ;  he  leaves  the  church  as  calmly  as  he  had  en- 
tered it.  He  leaves  the  city  of  his  pride  and  hope  with  as 
little  outward  tremor  as  when  he  rode  in,  triumphant,  four 
years  before.  He  offers  no  freedom  to  his  slaves.  They 
take  it.  Just  as  the  Israelites  took  their  actual  liberty, 
without  the  order  of  Pharaoh,  who  would  have  granted  the 
three  days'  journey,  but  not  emancipation,  so  do  ours 
theirs.  Their  unbending  tyrant  gives  no  sign  of  submis- 
sion. He  falls,  like  Satan,  upon  his  eternal  ruin,  unsub- 
dued, unterrified. 

(3.)  Like  Pharaoh,  he  possessed  the  power  of  infusing 
his  strength  into  others.  That  monarch  often  felt  the  will 
of  his  subordinates  failing  him.  Once  and  again  they  en- 
treat him  to  yield  to  the  demands  of  Moses.  "How  long," 
they  say,  "  shall  this  man  be  a  snare  unto  us  ?  Let  the 
men  go,  that  they  may  serve  the  Lord  their  God  ;  knowest 
thou  not  yet  that  Egypt  is  destroyed  ?  "  But  Pharaoh's 


540  JEFFERSON    DAVIS  AND    PHARAOH. 

heart  did  not  relent.  He  still  refused  to  hear  the  voice  of 
God.  He  strengthened  his  subjects  to  endure  the  vials  of 
wrath  which  Omnipotence  was  pouring  constantly  upon 
them. 

Even  so  has  our  Pharaoh  been  entreated  again  and  again 
by  his  people  to  make  terms  with  the  enemy,  even  at  the 
sacrifice  of  slavery.  Governor  Brown  of  Georgia,  Senator 
Hunter,  Vice-President  Stephens,  and  not  a  few  of  her  gen- 
erals, have  been  advocates  for  peace  and  Union.  But  he 
stood  firm.  One  word  he  writes  as  his  sole  orders  to  the 
embassy  that  met  our  President  at  Fortress  Monroe  but  two 
months  ago  —  "  Independence."  *  And  he  inspires  that 
embassy  with  his  resolution.  Every  one  of  them  saw  the 
impossibility  of  carrying  out  that  purpose.  They  were 
ready  to  yield.  Not  so  he.  He  compelled  them  to  his 
service  ;  he  made  Johnson,  and  has  just  made  Lee  fight  his 
battles,  after  they  had  acknowledged  that  even  victory  could 
not  save  them.  That  sally  upon  Fort  Steadman,  that  three 
days'  battle  behind  Petersburg,  were  all  compelled  by  Jef- 
ferson Davis.  Like  Pharaoh,  he  rallied  his  hosts  for  the 
last  encounter.  Perhaps  like  him  he  will  still  make  another 
desperate  assault  upon  God  and  Liberty.  Perhaps  the  Red 
Sea,  where  his  hosts  and  his  power  shall  perish,  has  not  yet 
been  reached.  The  midnight  cry  in  Richmond,  and  flight 
from  its  mighty  walls,  may  not  be  the  last  of  this  tyrant. 
We  shall  see.  But  we  shall  see  that  if  he  gathers  his  le- 
gions for  a  new  resistance,  and  is  again  overthrown,  he  will 
still  die  haughty,  stern,  defiant.  His  allies  may  cower. 
He  never.  No  such  correspondence  will  pass  from  him  to 
President  Lincoln  as  General  Lee  wrote  to  General  Grant. 
He  dies  as  he  has  lived,  with  firm  and  steadfast  mind,  fully 
set  to  do  evil.  These  three  qualities  of  far-sightedness, 
steadiness,  and  power  to  inspire  others  with  strength,  are 
striking  counterparts  of  his  great  original. 

*  See  Note  XIX. 


AN   HISTORIC   PARALLEL.  541 

3.  But  their  work  is  as  analogous  as  their  characters. 
For  what  purpose  did  God  raise  them  up  ?  To  show  forth 
His  power,  and  that  His  name  might  be  declared  through- 
out all  the  earth.  How  remarkably  do  their  histories  com- 
pare. The  first  has  been  famous  throughout  the  earth  and 
throughout  all  generations.  Other  Pharaohs  have  ruled  in 
Egypt.  Some  built  pyramids,  some  temples,  some  ran 
through  Syria  and  the  East  with  their  all-conquering  armies. 
Some  erected  gigantic  statues,  which  still  remain  for  the 
astonishment  of  modern  eyes.  Yet  all  are  forgotten  beside 
this  otherwise  unknown  king.  Some  suppose  he  was  the 
great  Ramesis,  the  Napoleon  of  his  dynasty.  But  no  proof 
of  this  is  extant.  And  if  it  is  so,  not  for  his  deeds  of  war, 
or  government,  or  architecture,  or  piety  is  he  famous.  In 
these  he  is  utterly  unknown.  Only  as  the  one  whom  God 
raised  up,  by  whom  to  free  His  people,  is  he  ever  heard  of 
among  men. 

Thus  is  Jefferson  Davis  to  be  known  ;  thus  only.  Men 
knew  him  before  as  an  astute  politician,  as  a  brave  and 
accomplished  soldier,  as  a  gentleman  in  culture  and  bear- 
ing, as  the  easy  master  of  his  party  and  its  administration 
of  the  government.  They  have  known  him  since  his  usur- 
pation as  one  who  is  perfect  master  of  himself ;  who  can 
express  the  most  abhorrent  ideas  in  the  calmest,  strong- 
est, and  most  elegant  language  ;  who  can  organize  armies 
in  every  part  of  the  vast  region  that  recognizes  his  sway  ; 
who  can  make  every  State  legislature  and  his  Con- 
gress, in  spite  of  malice,  and  envy,  and  failure  even,  em- 
body his  will  ;  who  can  so  influence  the  courts  of  Europe 
that  they  covertly  recognize  his  embassadors,  and  one  of 
their  first  statesmen  can  say,  in  an  extorted  admiration, 
"  lie  has  created  a  nation."  It  is  not  too  much  to  say 
that  the  accomplished,  courtly,  sagacious  Davis  has  ap- 
peared before  the  world  to  vastly  greater  advantage  than 
our  rude,  stammering  Moses,  who  only  utters  a  finished 


542  JEFFERSON    DAVIS   AND    PHARAOH. 

sentence  by  mistake,  and  stumblingly  presents  the  demands 
for  which  alone  he  too  has  been  raised  up. 

Yet  with  all  his  abilities  and  his  fame,  Jefferson  Davis 
will  be  known  in  history  only  as  the  one  through  whose 
needful  resistance  God  wrought  the  liberty  of  His  people. 
For  this  purpose  God  hath  raised  him  up. 

How  necessary  it  was  that  Pharaoh's  heart  should  be 
strong.  Had  he  yielded  early,  the  Israelites  would  have 
made  their  journey  and  returned  ;  and  so  His  purposes  and 
promises  would  have  been  defeated.  He  must  refuse  the 
first  pleas  in  order  that  the  divine  end  shall  be  accomplished. 
His  people  were  not  ready  to  go,  The  great  and  terrible 
wilderness  made  them  naturally  affrighted.  They  still 
loved  the  flesh-pots  of  Egypt.  They  feared  the  enemy  be- 
hind and  before  ;  they  had  but  little  if  any  confidence  in 
the  leader,  and  he  as  little  in  himself.  The  Egyptians  would 
not  have  aided  their  departure  with  the  needful  gifts.  The 
work  must  grow.  It  must  grow  around  a  point  of  resist- 
ance as  well  as  a  center  of  resolve.  Moses  and  Pharaoh 
both  developed  gigantically  in  the  long  conflict  —  a  conflict 
certainly  of  months,  probably  of  years.  So  have  Lincoln 
and  Davis.  Had  the  usurper  yielded,  as  most  expected 
that  he  would  at  the  beginning  of  the  war,  the  great  pur- 
pose of  God  would  have  been  unaccomplished.  That  pur- 
pose, be  it  ever  kept  in  mind,  was  Emancipation.  Nothing 
short  of  this  would  satisfy  His  will.  To  bring  us  up  to  the 
willingness  to  proclaim  it,  He  must  make  that  strong  will 
stronger  in  resisting  every  attempt  at  any  other  settlement. 
He  does  not  alter  the  will,  he  does  not  deprive  it  of  its  essen- 
tial freedom.  It  chooses  sin.  He  nerves  it  so  that  it  per- 
sists in  sin.  It  would  still  prefer  it.  There  would  be  no 
inward  conversion  in  him,  as  there  is  not  to-day  in  the  sub- 
jugated aristocracy  of  Richmond,  in  Lee  and  Ewell,  and  the 
imprisoned  leaders  of  their  armies.  He  allows  its  free 
choice  to  continue,  but  gives  its  strength  strictly  accord- 
ing to  its  law  by  which  it  abides  firm  in  its  free  election. 


AN   HISTORIC   PARALLEL.  543 

Note  how  often  this  appeal  has  been  made  and  resisted, 
because  God's  ends  would  not  have  been  attained  in  its 
acceptance. 

First  came  the  Peace  Congress,  before  the  first  inaugura- 
tion of  Mr.  Lincoln,  that  offered  to  make  the  Crittenden  res- 
olutions the  basis  of  settlement  —  extending  slavery  to  the 
Pacific,  and  confirming  it  in  the  States  where  it  existed,  by 
constitutional  amendment.  Four  fifths  of  the  South  would 
have  accepted  that.  Davis  said,  "  No  :  —  Independence." 
Charles  Francis  Adams  next  offered  like  amendments  in 
Congress,  with  the  cooperation  of  Mr.  Seward  and  Mr.  Lin- 
coln. The  firm  refusal  of  Davis  alone  prevented  the  mis- 
erable humiliation  of  their  passage. 

Mr.  Lincoln  next  makes  every  concession  and  promise  in 
his  inaugural  ;  still  he  is  defiant. 

We  seek  to  relieve  a  starving  garrison,  taking  bread,  not 
balls,  to  their  help.  He  orders  his  men  to  fire  upon  the 
merchant  ship,  and  fire  at  the  same  time  the  Southern 
heart. 

The  President  issues  the  riot  act,  and  calls  upon  them  to 
'lay  down  their  arms,  promising  universal  pardon.  They 
and  their  leader  laugh  him  to  scorn. 

Bull  Run  follows,  and  they  exult  the  more.  A  long  win- 
ter of  pride  and  luxury  succeeds,  during  which  they  rest 
assured  of  victory.  The  spring  opens  with  the  fall. of  Fort 
Donelson  and  the  capture  and  government  of  New  Orleans, 
in  which  events  appear  almost  simultaneously  before  the 
public  eye,  the  three  representatives  of  our  naval,  mili- 
tary, and  moral  victories,  —  equals  in  honor  and  in  fame,  — 
Farragut,  Grant,  and  Butler. 

Still  Davis  is  unyielding.  McClellari's  defeats  confirm 
his  confidence.  Then  we  are  forced  to  issue  the  Proclama- 
tion. With  how  much  hesitation  that  word  of  God  was 
uttered  ;  with  how  great  hostility  on  the  part  of  the  nation, 
history  will  painfully  record.  The  President  declares,  just 


544  JEFFERSON    DAVIS   AND   PHARAOH. 

before  he  makes  it,  that  it  is  like  the  Pope's  bull  against 
the  comet.  He  holds  it  back  for  a  year,  and  would  have 
held  it  back  till  to-day,  but  for  the  bloody  scourges  of  an 
angry  God.  Even  then  it  gave  the  rebels  time  to  come  to 
their  allegiance.  Strong  in  his  faith  and  purpose,  their 
Pharaoh  ridiculed  the  offer  and  the  threat. 

Again  the  spring  opens  dark  with  disasters  to  our  cause, 
that  he  might  be  confirmed  in  his  resistance  and  we  in  our 
duty.  Drafts  are  called  for.  Riots  break  out.  The  enemy 
get  the  reins  of  government  in  their  hands  in  New  York 
and  elsewhere.  Gold  goes  up.  Business  goes  down.  What 
next  ?  "  Arm  your  colored  men  !  "  "  Impossible  !  " 
"  Arm  !  "  says  God.  "  I  will  not !  "  say  you.  "  Treat 
these  niggers  as  men,  as  fellow-soldiers.  '  Is  thy  servant 
a  dog,  that  he  should  do  this  thing  ?  '  "  Arm  !  "  sounds 
solemnly  from  the  voice  of  God.  And  we  most  reluctantly 
obeyed.  Still  we  said  we  will  arm  them  as  servants,  not 
as  soldiers.  Ten  dollars  a  month  shall  they  have,  and  none 
shall  hold  rank  above  the  sergeant.  They  enlist,  they  fight, 
they  die,  they  compel  our  unwilling  admiration.  Still  they 
are  not  paid  as  soldiers.  Congress  refuses  to  pay  them. 
The  President  opposes  it.  In  answer  to  our  partial  faith- 
fulness God  gives  us  partial  success.  Vicksburg  falls,  and 
Gettysburg  repels  the  invader.  But  Chattanooga  is  be- 
sieged, .Louisiana  is  overrun,  Fredericksburg  is  defiant. 
The  spring  opens  with  Chattanooga  ours.  But  Banks  is 
repelled  with  great  slaughter,  and  the  coast  of  North  Caro- 
lina largely  retaken.  Grant  prepares  to  move  out  on  his 
campaign,  now  so  triumphantly  concluding.  Before  he  goes 
he  demands  of  Congress  equal  pay  for  his  soldiers.  Some 
of  you  will  remember  that  I  preached  on  the  occasion  of 
his  departure,  on  "  Why  he  would  succeed,"  and  laid  that 
down  as  the  corner-stone — the  making  of  all  his  men  equal 
in  their  pay.*  More  than  his  genius  is  that  justice.  Still 

*  See  p.  393. 


AN   HISTORIC   PARALLEL.  545 

Davis  hardens  his  heart ;  and  last  summer,  when  his  emissa- 
ries plotted  for  peace  at  Niagara  Falls,  our  President  had 
grown  to  the  stature  of  the  divine  will.  Never  before. 
Peace  on  the  basis  not  of  Union  alone,  this  had  always 
been  his  previous  error  ;  but  also  on  that  of  Emancipation. 
Then  came  success  after  success, — at'  Atlanta,  at  the  polls, 
at  Savannah. 

Still  the  chief  was  defiant.  Till  but  two  months  ago  it 
seemed  as  if  this  divine  demand  might  be  sacrificed.  Had 
he  said  to  his  commissioners  with  Mr.  Lincoln,  "  Peace  and 
Union,"  the  country  might  have  compelled  the  President  to 
submit  to  the  ignomy.  Leading  abolitionists,  like  The 
Tribune,  were  more  clamorous  for  peace  than  for  liberty. 
But  God  hardened  Pharaoh's  heart,  and  he  said,  "  No 
Union."  Hence  no  peace.  Even  when  Sherman  had  reached 
North  Carolina,  and  Grant  was  about  to  move  on  the  enemy's 
works,  Davis  proposes  to  talk  of  peace,  but  with  no  offers 
of  Union.  Independence  is  still  his  cry ;  to  it  he  clings,  to 
the  bitter  end.  Then  comes  his  overthrow  as  in  a  night,  and 
with  him  is  buried,  in  an  eternal  grave,  not  only  disunion 
but  slavery.  "For  this  purpose  I  have  raised  thee  up,  that 
I  might  show  forth  My  power  through  thee." 

My  children  shall  go  free.  Despite  their  timidity,  despite 
the  unwillingness  of  the  people  of  the  North,  despite  the 
hellish  purpose  of  their  masters,  they  shall  go  free.  The 
tyrant's  firmness  shall  breed  strength  in  the  heart  of  his 
enemy,  until  the  word  peace,  in  its  mildest  form,  when  pro- 
posed by  their  chief  general  as  the  basis  of  his  submission, 
is  carefully  excluded  by  his  conqueror.  No  terms,  but  mil- 
itary ;  not  peace,  but  surrender. 

Thus  has  Jefferson  Davis  been  lifted  up  before  all  the 
world.  Thus  has  every  eye  in  Europe,  peasant's  or  prince's, 
seen  the  strong-willed  enemy  of  God  steadfastly  resisting 
His  divine  decrees,  and  manifesting  the  very  power  of  God, 
because  He  thus  constrains  the  further  and  full  expression 
35 


546  JEFFERSON    DAVIS   AND    PHARAOH. 

of  that  power,  to  its  glorious  accomplishment  in  the  com- 
plete deliverance  of  His  long  enslaved  people. 

4.  Their  fates  are  similar. 

Whether  Pharaoh  perished  in  the  Red  Sea  or  not,  he  per- 
ished from  history  at  that  hour  of  his  overthrow ;  so  whether 
Davis  is  caught  and  hung,  or  escapes  and  dies  in  exile,  or 
at  home,  his  career  as  a  leader  and  a  man  of  influence  is 
closed.  No  longer  will  kings  and  emperors  accept  his  min- 
isters as  their  guests  and  friends.  No  longer  will  Earl 
Russell  answer  respectfully  and  officially  their  formal  notes. 
No  longer  will  the  Pope  send  him  letters,  and  the  emperors 
of  Africa  —  congenial  tyrants  —  their  best  blooded  steeds. 
No  longer  will  his  name  make  the  theaters  of  Oxford  and 
Cambridge  reecho  with  applause.  No  longer  will  parliament- 
arians argue  for  his  recognition,  and  all  aristocratic  Europe 
envy  him  his  dignities.  No  longer  will  commissions  signed 
with  his  name  protect  pirates  upon  the  seas,  and  robbers 
upon  our  borders. 

Jefferson  Davis  is  no  more.  The  President  of  the  Con- 
federate States,  head  of  a  million  soldiers,  the  pet  and  pride 
of  eight  millions  of  supporters,  is  a  panting  fugitive,  glad 
to  hide  his  diminished  head  in  the  depths  of  the  forest,  in 
the  huts  of  the  slave.  His  name  is  cast  out  and  trodden 
under  foot  of  men.  Let  him  live.  Napoleon  at  St.  Helena 
was  a  far  bitterer  pill  to  his  European  worshipers,  than  if 
he  had  been  guillotined  on  the  Place  de  la  Concorde.  So 
will  Davis  be  in  the  obscurity  of  London  or  Paris.  His  end 
is  reached.  The  Red  Sea  of  blood  has  drowned  his  hosts, 
his  power,  his  fame.  Let  him  rot  in  a  living  grave. 

Thus  has  God  shown  that  He  is  the  perpetual  Master  of 
the  world.  Whether  on  the  banks  of  the  Nile  or  the  Mis- 
sissippi, whether  thousands  of.years  ago  or  to-day,  whoever 
of  His  oppressed  people  calls  upon  Him,  He  will  hear,  He  will 
answer.  He  is  the  same  God,  visiting  the  iniquities  of  the 
fathers  upon  the  children  to  the  third  and  fourth  genera- 


AN   HISTORIC   PARALLEL.  547 

tions  of  them  that  hate  Him,  and  showing  mercy  unto 
thousands  of  them  that  love  Him  and  that  keep  His  com- 
mandments. 

Consider,  in  conclusion, 

II.  What  are  the  ends  God  had  in  view  in  this  display 
of  His  power. 

1.  The  first,  of  course,  was  to  release  millions  of  His  be- 
loved children  from  the  awful  bondage  under  which  they 
had  groaned.     Of  this  we  have  no  need  of  further  words. 
Whoever  believes  in  God  believes  in  His  hatred  of  oppres- 
sion—  and  such  oppression — not  the  mere  subjugation,  but 
the  sale  of  His  children  ;  not  the  sale  only,  but  their  sepa- 
ration also  ;  not  their  separation  merely,  but  their  subjec- 
tion to  unlicensed  lust.     The  only  wonder  is  that  He  with- 
held His  arm  so  long  ;  that  He  could  listen  for  generations 
to  their  dreadful  cries,   and  not  appear  on  the  clouds  of 
heaven  taking  vengeance  on  their  oppressors.     He  has  thus 
appeared.     Fire  has  fallen  from  heaven,   in  the  curvetting 
shell  of  General  Gilmore,   upon  the  Sodom  of  the  iniquity. 
Fire  foas  consumed  its  kindred  Gomorrah  with  its  destruc- 
tion.    He  has  avenged  His  own  elect,  who  have  cried  day 
and  night  unto  Him. 

2.  But  God's  purposes  in  this  redemption  is  to  confer 
great  honor  on  this  people.     Many  sneeringly  ask,  Is  not  a 
white  man  as  -good  as  a  black  man  ?     I  am  afraid  we  shall 
be   compelled  to  answer,   "  No."     Were  the  Egyptians  as 
good   as  the  Israelites  ?     They  thought  themselves   much 
the  better,  and  treated  with  ineffable  scorn,  and  shunned, 
with  what  they  thought,  instinctive  horror,  their  neighbor, 
the  Hebrew.     Yet  who  were  highest  in   the  thought,   and 
love,   and  purpose  of  God  ?     Who  in  the  history  of  man  ? 
Where  are  the  Egyptians  ?     Where  not  the  Hebrews  ?     So 
with  us.      Which  of  our  peoples  has  exhibited  most  of  the 
elements   of    goodness  ?      Which  has   the   most   faith,   the 
most   patience,   the  most  long-suffering,   the  most  charity  ? 


548  JEFFERSON    DAVIS   AND    PHARAOH. 

Which  obey  most  strikingly  those  commands  of  the  Gos- 
pel, "  When  ye  are  reviled  revile  not  again  ;  Bless  them 
that  curse  you,  and  pray  for  them  that  despitefully  use  you ; 
Love  your  enemies?"  I  have  talked  with  many  a  fugitive 
and  freedman,  and  never  heard  one  breathe  a  word  of  harsh- 
ness against  his  oppressors.  When  telling  the  story  of 
their  sufferings,  horrible  as  they  were,  no  railing  accusation 
was  raised,  none  was  felt  against  those  worse  than  murder- 
ers. What  does  all  this  betoken  ?  It  shows  us  where  the 
sweetest  fountains  of  grace  are  in  this  land.  It  shows  us 
who  are  most  like  the  apostles  and  martyrs  of  the  primi- 
tive ages.  These  did  not  surpass  our  martyrs  in  faith 
and  love,  as  they  could  not  in  suffering.  They  shall 
be  exalted  into  equal  honor.  God  intends  to  make  that 
the  choice  blood  of  America.  Not  our  proud  Anglo-Saxon, 
not  the  Celtic,  or  German,  or  any  other  of  the  representa- 
tive races,  shall  climb  to  the  top  of  American  society,  but 
the  African.  He  has  the  most  of  Christ.  He  is  the  nearest 
God.  If  he  maintain  his  piety  in  prosperity  that  he  has  in 
adversity,  if  he  grows  in  grace  as  he  grows  in  culture, 
then  shall  he  be  the  leaven  of  our  too  hard  and  impious 
mass.  He  shall  season  our  worldliness,  selfishness,  and 
irreligion  with  his  heavenly  salt.  In  humility  shall  he  be 
raised  to  sovereignty. 

As  the  Israelites  were  delivered,  not  merely  because  of 
God's  hatred  of  slavery,  and  sympathy  with  its  victims, 
but  because  they  were  His  chosen  people,  out  of  whom  He 
intended  to  make  for  Himself  a  name  in  all  the  earth  ;  so 
has  He  delivered  these  from  their  house  of  bondage,  that 
He  might  set  them  among  princes  ;  that  He  might  make 
for  Himself  a  people  humble,  holy,  faithful ;  the  best  ex- 
pression on  earth  of  His  divinest  nature. 

3.  He  has  emancipated  them  in  order  that  He  may  thus 
reunite  all  mankind  in  one  blessed  brotherhood  of  blood  and 
love.  A  descendant  of  this  same  Pharaoh  gladly  accepted 


AX   HISTORIC   PARALLEL.  549 

the  hand  and  the  throne  of  a  descendant  of  these  same 
slaves,  and  lives  in  history  only  because  of  this  alliance. 
So  shall  it  be  in  America.  The  daughters  of  these  haughty 
Southerners,  who  have  shrunk  from  their  touch  as  leprous, 
shall  yet  gratefully  accept  the  offers  of  the  sons  of  their 
father's  slaves,  and  their  parents  and  themselves  shall  feel 
their  house  exalted  by  the  alliance.  That  day  is  near  at 
hand.  Not  ten  years  may  pass  ere  such  marriages  will  be 
frequent.  So  completely  will  society  be  reversed,  and  the 
true  relations  of  humanity  appear  in  that  clime. 

In  fact,  their  independence  could  have  hardly  delayed  this 
result,  so  ripe  was  that  region  for  that  change.  It  will  be 
precipitated  with  a  rapidity  that  will  astonish  all  scoffers 
and  infidels  when  once  peace  resumes  her  sway,  under  the 
banner  of  Union  and  Abolitionism.  Gentlemen  and  ladies, 
as  well  as  the  poorer  classes,  will  delight  in  such  legal, 
happy,  God-appointed  relations.  And  the  despised  blood 
will  become  the  honored  and  even  enviable  blood  of  all  that 
region.  Thus  will  He  who  has  delivered  them  crown  them 
with  abundant  honor. 

Let  us  fear  and  praise  the  God  of  these  Hebrews.  Let 
us  be  of  those  Egyptians  who  joined  themselves  to  them. 
Let  us  behold  the  clear  revelation  of  His  will  and  purpose 
in  the  rapidly  unfolding  events  of  the  hour.  Those  who 
four  years  ago  were  slaves,  are  now  free ;  who  were  forbid- 
den in  Massachusetts  to  bear  arms,  now  hold  Savannah, 
Charleston,  and  Richmond  under  their  guns;  who  then  were 
shut  out  from  the  alphabet,  are  now  the  hungriest  and  most 
progressive  students  in  the  land  ;  who  then  were  not  ac- 
counted men,  are  now  demanding  their  equal  rights  as  citi- 
zens, and  will  soon  enjoy  all  the  prerogatives  of  manhood. 

Be  valiant  in  this  cause.  Let  not  the  mistaken  policy  of 
our  President,  as  revealed  in  his  speech  of  this  week,* 

*  The  last  address  Mr.  Lincoln  made  only  advocated  partial  and  very 
limited  negro  suffrage.  It  was  the  indorsement  of  Governor  Banks's 
policy  in  New  Orleans  instead  of  Gene-al  Butler's. 


550  JEFFERSON    DAVIS   AND    PHARAOH. 

become  the  law  of  the  land.  May  he  who  will  be  always 
known  as  the  Liberator,  be  also  known  as  the  Regenerator. 
Let  not  those  rebellious  States  be  reorganized  without 
conferring  the  right  of  suffrage  on  every  loyal  man. 
Twelve  thousand  half  loyal  whites  of  Louisiana  refuse  the 
petition  of  six  thousand  thoroughly  loyal  colored  men  to 
give  them  equal  suffrage.  Shame  on  this  nation  if,  after 
having  been  led  so  far  in  the  way  of  duty,  when  the  mo- 
ment of  success  dawns,  it  shall  cast  itself  back  into  the 
mire  of  its  own  sins.  Shame  on  it,  if  having  won  its 
triumphs  by  the  valor  of  men  of  color,  it  shall  refuse  those 
men  that  franchise  which  it  bestows  on  any  Northern 
traitor  who  has  done  his  uttermost  to  oppose  the  govern- 
ment, and  even  upon  the  Southern  rebel,  on  his  taking  the 
oath  of  allegiance  —  an  act  of  easy  and  frequent  perjury.* 

Shame,  too,  on  the  Church  that  seeks  to  separate  these 
best  children  of  God  from  their  prouder  but  less  pious 
brethren.  South  and  North,  in  Boston  and  Charleston, 
there  should  be  no  such  thing  known  as  a  white  or  a 
colored  Church.  All  should  be  knit  together  in  love.  All 
must  be,  all  will  be. 

Let  us  then,  my  friends,  hail  the  future.  Our  Pharaoh 
is  perished.  He  steals,  a  homeless  wanderer,  through  the 
regions  he  so  lately  ruled.  He  is  of  the  past.  We  are 
of  the  future.  The  redeemed  Israelites  remain  —  the  re- 
deemed nation.  May  we  not,  becaus£  of  our  unbelief  and 
unwillingness  to  obey  God's  most  clear  commands,  be 
compelled  to  wander  forty  years  in  the  wilderness,  as 
we  have  for  the  seventy  years  that  are  past ;  but  may 
we  instantly  recognize  and  obey  His  will,  so  that  our 
Canaan  shall  be  speedily  gained,  and  our  rest  shall  be 
glorious. 

*  This  was  the  policy  so  persistently  and  fatally  followed  out  by  Lin- 
coln's successor. 


THE    UJSTITER    AND    LIBERATOR 
OF    AMERICA.* 


"  THY    GENTLENESS    HATH    MADE    ME    GREAT."  —  Ps.  XVlii.  35. 

"HE    SAVED    OTHERS,    HIMSELF    HE    CANNOT    SAVE." Matt.  XXVii.  42. 

"  ALL    NATIONS    SHALL    CALL    HIM    BLESSED."  Ps.  IxXli.   17. 

• 

HE  appalling  deed  of  the  last  Good  Friday  begins 
to  put  on  the  fixed  lineaments  of  the  past.  As 
that  face  and  form,  then  so  full  of  life,  are  frozen 
in  death,  so  he  who  animated  them  is  fast  becom- 
ing solidified  and  shapen  in  the  unchanging  marble  of  history. 
Still  standing  in  the  horrible  shadow,  how  can  we  carve 
the  features  of  the  immortal  dead  ?  The 'chisel  shakes  in  our 
trembling  hand.  The  rain  of  sorrow  blinds  our  eyes.  In 
the  ghastly  darkness,  we  but  faintly  discern  the  spiritual 
form  that  has  so  suddenly  and  forever  vanished  from  the 
eyes  of  man.  He,  who  but  yesterday  was  the  center  of  all 
human  observation  ;  whose  every  word,  as  he  himself  de- 
clared but  three  nights  before  his  death,  was  in  no  unim- 
portant sense  a  national  decree ;  from  whom  were  the  issues 

*  A  Memorial  Discourse  on  the  Character  and  Career  of  Abraham  Lin- 
coln :  delivered  in  the  North  Russell  Street  M.  E.  Church,  Boston,  on 
the  Occasion  of  his  Assassination,  Sunday,  April  23,  18G5. 

(551) 


552      THE   UNITER  AND   LIBERATOR   OF   AMERICA. 

of  life  and  death  to  the  imperious  leaders  of  the  rebellion 
and  their  too  willing  subjects  ;  upon  whose  course  foreign 
potentates  fastened  watchful  eyes,  and  foreign  peoples  were 
yet  more  intent ;  the  foremost  man  in  all  the  world,  —  now 
lies  he  low  in  his  shroud  of  blood.  A  nation  weeps  around 
his  bier.  The  world  bemoans  his  fate. 

Never  before  did  so  wide  and  bitter  a  cry  pierce  the  skies. 
Never  before  were  the  heads  of  so  many  millions  waters, 
and  their  eyes  fountains  of  teai'S,  weeping  day  and  night  for 
tne  slain  of  the  daughter  of  their  people.  The  great  day  of 
the  Church  has  become  yet  more  solemn  in  the  annals  of 
America.  Let  not  the  15th  of  April  be  considered  the  day 
of  his  death,  but  let  Good  Friday  be  its  anniversary.  For 
then  the  fatal  blow  was  struck.  He  died  to  the  conscious 
world  ere  the  day  had  died.  Wo  should  make  it  a  movable , 
fast,  and  ever  keep  it  beside  the  cross  and  the  grave  of  our 
blessed  Lord,  in  whose  service  and  for  whose  gospel  he 
became  a  victim  and  a  martyr.  • 

That  crime  I  cannot  dwell  upon  in  such  an  hour.  The 
criminal  is  not  the  object  of  my  revenge.  Justice  will 
demand  his  death,  to  whom  no  less  would  it  be  a  mercy ; 
for  it  would  shut  him  from  the  sight  of  the  race  he  had  dis- 
honored and  the  earth  he  had  polluted.  Not  the  awful  trans- 
gressor nor  his  crime,  not  even  the  gigantic  abomination  of 
which  this  deed  was  the  natural  and  inevitable  fruit,  shall 
becloud  the  hour.  Let  us  look  the  rather  upon  him  whose 
earthly  work  is  done  ;  not  upon  his  form,  laid  out  in  "  long- 
stretching  death,"  that  is  slowly  moving  amid  tearful  myri- 
ads, through  mighty  cities,  by  the  side  of  inland  seas,  across 
yet  vaster  seas  of  billowy  or  level  green,  to  its  beloved 
home  in  the  heart  of  the  land,  fit  resting-place  for  him  who 
shall  ever  live  in  the  heart  of  the  nation  ;  but  upon  the 
features  of  his  life,  that  we  may  learn  why  he  grew  to  such' 
a  hight,  and  how  we  may,  in  our  humbler  sphere,  attain  an 
equal  perfection. 


THE   DEATH   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN.  553 

The  character  and  career  of  Abraham  Lincoln  will  there- 
fore be  the  appropriate  subject  of  our  mournful  meditations. 
These  are  harmoniously  united.  His  career  was  but  the 
flowering  of  his  character,  —  his  character  the  seed  and 
germ  of  his  career.  Extraordinary  circumstances  gave  that 
nature  a  fulness  of  opportunity  for  its  development  such  as 
has  most  rarely,  probably  never  before,  fallen  to  the  lot  of 
man ;  but  they  did  not  make  the  man.  The  most  fruitful 
ground  does  not  create  the  character  of  the  seed  it  multiplies. 
It  imparts  a  possibility  of  richness  and  fulness  that  inferior 
earths  cannot  afford.  Still  their  own  nature  abides,  and  the 
oak  is  an  oak,  the  ivy  an  ivy,  in  the  richest  as  well  as  in  the 
poorest  soils. 

His  character  was  as  complete  when  wrapped  in  the  vesi- 
cles of  his  early  privacy  as  in  the  grand  uplifts  of  its  wonder- 
ful consummations.  As  a  child,  a  youth,  an  industrious, 
studious,  obscure  workman,  a  lawyer  and  politician  of  Illinois, 
he  displayed  the  peculiar  qualities  which  in  his  higher  sphere 
bore  such  abundant  fruit.  His  first  speech  was  as  brief,  as 
witty,  as  compact,  as  simple-minded,  and  as  good-natured  as 
his  last.* 

For  these  traits  he  is  not  to  be  praised.  He  was  created 
in  the  frame  of  soul  that  he  ever  exhibited.  For  their 
culture  he  alone  merits  eulogy. 

God  needs  various  workmen  for  his  varied  work.  And  as 
a  wise  master-builder  uses  a  great  variety  of  material  for  his 
manifold  edifice,  and  works  this  material  into  a  yet  greater 
variety  of  forms,  that  the  whole  may  be  a  unit  of  perfection, 
so  does  the  Divine  Master-builder  in  His  infinitely  grander 
structures  of  soul,  erected  on  earth  for  time  and  for  eternity. 

The  stately  cathedral  has  its  massy  stone,  lying  in  huge 
boulders  under  its  visible  foundations,  rising  in  shapen 
blocks  to  its  roof  and  pinnacles,  carved  in  daintiest  delicacy 

*  See  Note  XX. 


554      THE    UNITEB   AND   LIBERATOR   OF   AMERICA. 

around  its  pillars,  doors,  and  altar.  This  solid  earth  it 
lightens  with  graceful  forms  of  wood,  as  though  the  heart 
of  oak  blossomed  like  the  gentlest  flower  into  fragrant 
beauty.  These  are  yet  more  relieved  by  tints  that  flush  the 
cold  face  of  stone  with  life,  and  this  vitality  puts  on  its 
highest  expression  in  the  scenes,  sacred  and  divine,  into 
which  the  walls  change  under  the  touch  of  the  great  masters, 
as  the  shapely  face  of  death  becomes  radiant  with  life  and 
love  under  the  inspiration  of  its  Creator. 

Thus  does  God  build  up  the  nation  and  the  world.  Thus 
does  He  use  every  style  of  character,  every  quality  of  spirit 
in  His  sublime  cathedral  of  man,  which  He  is  patiently  and 
persistently  erecting,  in  truth  and  love,  out  of  a  redeemed 
and  regenerated  humanity,  on  the  earth  and  in  the  heavens. 

I.  What,  then,  were  the  traits  of  soul  which  this  eminent 
agent  in  the  plan  divine  received  from  God,  and  faithfully, 
usefully,  and  rewardfully  developed  ? 

1.  We  should  only  respond  to  the  sentiment  of  every 
heart,  hostile  or  friendly,  when  we  place  at  the  foundation 
of  his  character,  honesty.  This  was  his  familiar  appellation 
in  obscurity.  It  has  been  none  the  less  so  in  the  greatness 
of  his  exaltation.  Yet  it  fails  to  express  the  whole  idea 
which  it  strives  to  embody.  It  is  the  rude,  ungainly  trunk, 
which,  despite  its  rough  exterior,  is  both  the  upholder  and 
the  nourisher  of  all  the  attractions  that  rejoice  above  it.  It 
branches  out  in  graceful  boughs,  with  their  rustling  robes 
of  green.  It  turns  under  the  smiles  of  spring  into  an  orb  of 
odorous  flower.  It  hangs  in  an  autumn  ripeness  of  golden 
fruit. 

Honesty  in  him  was  not  the  calculating  wisdom  of  the 
world  as  shown  in  its  favorite  and  unworthy  employment  of 
that  word.  It  was  not  from  selfish  policy  that  he  was  honest. 
Such  honesty  is  really  most  dishonorable.  It  meant  in  him  its 
true  and  original  signification.  It  was  sincerity,  simplicity, 
impartiality,  honor  ;  in  fine,  the  scriptural  conception  of  this 


THE   DEATH   OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN*  555 

nature,  guilelessncss.  Look  down  as  deep  as  yon  may  into  his 
profound  nature,  you  will  see  that  it  is  clear  as  a  moteless 
fountain.  It  may  seem  to  be  shallow,  it  is  so  pure  ;  and  yet 
a  second  sight  convinces  you  that  though  your  eyes  are 
sounding  deeply,  they  touch  not  the  bottom.  As  you  look 
skywards  on  a  clear  day,  you  first  fancy  that  you  sweep  the 
whole  depth  of  the  dome  with  your  glance ;  a  second  and 
more  penetrating  gaze  shows  you  that  you  have  only 
caught  its  lowest  outlines.  As  it  rises  hights  above  hights, 
you  exclaim,  — 

"  The  chasm  of  sky  above  my  head 
Is  Heaven's  profoundest  azure, 

an  alyss 

In  which  the  everlasting  stars  abide." 

Thus  do  you  gaze  into  this  pellucid  nature.  It  is  as 
simple  and  open  as  a  child's,  yet  you  cannot  penetrate  it ; 
not  because  it  interposes  barriers  to  your  gaze,  but  because 
your  vision  fails.  It  is  none  the  less  clear  because  it  is 
so  deep.  Could  you  look  farther,  you  would  find  the  same 
nature,  honest,  unselfish,  child-like  ;  "an  Israelite  indeed,  in 
whom  is  no  guile." 

The  soul  of  this  characteristic  is  absence  of  selfishness. 
That  is  the  root  of  guile.  Though  not  without  the  tempta- 
tions common  to  all  men,  he  was  remarkably  free  from  this 
propensity.  This  freedom  from  self-seeking  is  the  more 
noticeable  in  contrast  with  the  characters  of  most  great  men. 
Milton  declares  ambition  "the  last  infirmity  of  noble  minds." 
This  passion  implies  a  subtle  love  of  self,  and  frequently 
mars  the  most  exalted  natures.  Only  one  President  before 
him  seemed  almost  utterly  free  from  it.  Jefferson  talked  in- 
difference, but  was  a  ceaseless  schemer  and  mover  of  politi- 
cal wires  while  professedly  absorbed  in  his  laboratory,  study, 
and  farm.  Adams,  Franklin,  Jackson,  Clay,  were  men  of 
great  parts,  but  a  sense  of  their  necessity  to  the  movements 


556      THE.UNITER  AND   LIBERATOR   OF   AMERICA. 

of  the  nation  gave  to  their  strength  the  weakness  of  men. 
Their  personality  was  to  them  an  essential  element  in  the 
events  of  their  age.  Not  so  with  Washington  and  Lincoln. 
They  were  the  priests  placed  over  the  abyss  divine.  The 
breath  of  God  bore  them  onward  in  the  accomplishment  of 
His  purposes.  They  were  His  willing  servants,  but  servants 
only.  They  were  not  necessary  to  His  success.  Each 
looked  forward  to  the  hour  when  he  should  repose  peaceful- 
ly in  the  quiet  of  their  homes.  Each  felt  that  others  had 
greater  wisdom  than  they.  Each  bent  his  ear  kindly  to 
hear  what  their  more  creative  minds  should  say.  Each  sin- 
cerely sought  the  truth.  Other  men  of  might  feel  that  they 
possess  the  truth.  They  do  not  seek  it.  It  comes  to  them. 
It  is  an  inspiration.  They  must  declare  it  or  die.  "  Woe 
is  me,"  cry  Phillips  and  Everett,  cry  Sumner  and  Beecher, 
"  if  I  speak  not  that  which  I  feel  stirring  within  me."  The 
President  had  no  such  call.  He  waited  to  hear  their  words. 
In  sincerity  of  heart  he  deliberated,  decided,  acted. 

This  trait  gave  him  that  slowness  of  action,  which  was 
not  unlike  the  stammering  of  Moses.  He  must  hear  the 
voice  thrice  ere  he  obeyed  it.  He  must  consider,  as  he  can- 
not create  ;  deliberate,  as  he  does  not  divine. 

2.  But  this  guilelessness  of  heart  and  impartiality  of  judg- 
ment were  joined  to  great  faithfulness  in  adhering  to  the 
truths  he  had  espoused.  His  step  was  as  firm  as  it  was 
careful.  Having  done  all,  he  stood.  Hampden's  motto 
might  properly  have  been  his  —  Nulla  vestigia  retrorsum. 
No  step  did  he  ever  take  backward.  Men  of  ideas  often  fail 
when  those  ideas  are  born  into  actual  life,  and  the  Herods 
rise  up  for  their  destruction.  They  are  bold  in  the  closet 
and  the  forum,  but  timid  in  the  field.  Demosthenes  was  not 
only  the  greatest  orator  of  Athens,  he  was  her  greatest 
democrat ;  none  of  her  men  of  might  equalled  him  in  courage- 
ous defence  of  her  central  doctrine.  And  yet  when  she 
must  sustain  her  idea  at  Chseronea,  he  fled  before  the  legions 


THE  DEATH  OF  ABKAHAM  LINCOLN.  557 

of  monarchy,  and  denied  in  shame  the  faith  for  which  he  had 
so  valiantly  contended.  Cicero  was  equally  courageous  in 
words  and  cowardly  in  deeds,  —  a  Roman  in  the  forum,  but 
not  at  the  front. 

So  have  been  many  idealists  and  reformers.  Their  shields 
have  been  thrown  away  when  the  enemy  assailed  them. 
Such  are  not  the  most  renowned.  They  have  the  strength 
of  soul  both  to  create  and  to  sustain.  Socrates,  Huss, 
Luther,  Paul  could  fight  as  well  as  speak,  —  die  as  heroi- 
cally as  they  lived.  Still  this  faithfulness  is  more  sure  to  be 
revealed  in  those  who  accept  the  truth  in  full  view  of  the 
perils  it  involves.  Who  takes  the  oath  of  allegiance  before 
the  enemy's  guns  will  be  apt  to  abide  by  it  in  the  succeed- 
ing charge.  Lincoln  believed  in  these  truths  from  the  be- 
ginning. But  he  did  not  embrace  them  as  objects  of  duty 
till  he  saw  the  whites  of  the  enemy's  eyes,  as  they  were  rush- 
ing upon  him  to  his  evident  destruction.  Then  seizing  them 
as  if  they  were,  as  they  were,  loaded  cannon,  he  henceforth 
used  them  steadily  and  valiantly  in  repelling  and  discomfiting 
his  foe. 

This  trait  was  the  more  necessary  in  the  tremendous 
fluctuation  of  popular  feeling  and  current  events.  When 
the  waves  roared  and  were  troubled,  when  the  mountains 
shook  with  the  swelling  thereof,  it  was  well  for  the  nation 
that  one  held  the  helm  who  steered  carefully,  but  calmly  and 
steadily ;  who,  if  he  did  not  hasten,  did  not  go  back  ;  if  he 
did  not  so  soon  as  we  prayed  make  the  desired  haven,  never 
ran  his  vessel  back  upon  the  breakers  we  had  passed.  His 
faithfulness  was  one  of  his  most  admirable  and  most  neces- 
sary traits. 

3.  We  should  be  unjust  to  his  character  if  we  shrank 
from  noticing  his  playfulness.  In  common  with  many 
superior  minds,  he  was  as  sportful  as  a  lamb.  He  liked 
a  good  story  better  than  a  great  honor.  No  one  ever  more 
enjoyed 


558     THE  UNITER  AND  LIBERATOR  OF  AMERICA. 

"  Jests  and  youthful  jollity, 
Quips  and  cranks  and  wanton  wiles, 
Nods  and  becks  and  wreathed  smiles, 
Sport  that  wrinkled  care  derides, 
And  laughter  holding  both  his  sides." 

A  merry  twinkle  ever  sat  in  his  eyes.  Ever  when  saddest 
with  sorrow,  a  ray  of  this  sunlight  played  on  their  salt 
drops.  Napoleon,  Luther,  Socrates,  Cicero,  Caesar,  Wesley, 
Franklin,  Webster,  many  great  men,  were  of  this  nature. 
A  jest-book  attributed  to  Cicero  was  current  in  Rome  long 
after  his  death.  Caesar  was  ever  pointing  his  speech  with 
these  glittering  specialties.  Napoleon  was  full  of  mirth  and 
jokes,  even  on  the  night  before  Waterloo.  Their  bon-mots 
were  as  brilliant  as  their  battles.  Lincoln,  next  to  Franklin, 
if  next,  was  the  most  famous  jester  of  America.  Each  of 
these  ever  used  a  witty  story  to  point  an  argument ;  and 
many  was  the  laughable  word  uttered  by  the  great  diplomat 
of  the  Revolution,  that  did  the  people  of  that  sad  hour  good 
like  a  medicine. 

This  playfulness  was  not  unmanliness.  It  was  the  relief 
of  an  intensely  overstrained  nature,  —  the  dimples  of  child- 
hood dancing  on  the  cheek  of  age,  —  the  reminiscence  of  the 
past  and  prophecy  of  the  future,  that  kept  his  heart  green 
and  juicy  amid  the  furnace  of  fire,  heated  seven  times  hotter 
than  ever  before,  where  he  was  called  of  God  to  walk.  It 
was  an  important  element  in  his  career.  Without  it,  neither 
he  nor  the  people  could  have  walked  erect.  Those  mirthful, 
melancholic  stories  creeping  out  on  the  top  of  great  dis- 
asters, like  light  playing  upon  graves,  relieved  the  people 
in  their  terrific  gloom.  Not  that  he  did  not  weep.  No 
President  ever  wept  so  much.  Not  that  he  did  not  soberly 
gird  himself  to  his  fearful  responsibilities.  None  ever 
wrought  so  patiently  and  persistenly.  But  by  a  pleasantry 
he  lightened  his  and  our  bursting  hearts,  that  would  other- 
wise have  sunk  like  lead  in  the  mighty  waters. 


THE   DEATH   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN.  559 

4.  His  integrity  was  remarkable.     In  fact,  all  the  traits 
we  have  mentioned,  save  perhaps  the  last,  may  be  summed 
up   in  the    one   word  —  Integrity.     Here    is   his    honesty, 
his  simplicity,  his  impartiality,  his  steadfastness.     He  was 
an    integer  —  a  unit.     His    soul  was  one.     There  was  no 
disunion  there  —  no   conflict  there.     Its    surface    might  be 
tossed,  not  its  depths.     He  had  doubts  as  to  what  policy  to 
pursue,  and   often  changed   it  with  the  changing  moment ; 
but  never  did  he  doubt  his  country,  his  cause,  himself.     It 
was  the  spinal  column,  that  supported  not  him  alone  but  the 
whole  land.     To  it,  as  to  a  mighty  tower,  the  people  fled, 
and  felt  that  they  were  safe.     Thousands  of  millions  passed 
through"  his  hand  ;  no  itching  palm  caught  the  most  soiled 
fragment  of  the  tiniest  currency.     He  assumed  the  errors, 
even  the  asserted  peculations  of  his  subordinates,  as  his  own. 
The  country  smiled,  but  laid  not  the  assumed   sin  to  his 
charge.     Its  faith    in  his   rectitude  was  unbounded.     The 
most  envenomed   shafts  were  never  aimed    at  that  mark. 
Here,  at  least,  his  bitterest  foes  confessed  that  he  was  in- 
vulnerable. 

5.  But  even  this  was  not  the  seat  of  his  strength.     That 
lay  in  his  love.     His  gentleness  made  him  great.     Sincere, 
honorable,  faithful,  true,  he  might  have  been,  and  yet  not 
beloved.     Franklin  was  as  mirthful,  Washington  as  incor- 
ruptible, Adams  as  just,  yet  for  none  of  them  did  the  peo- 
ple shed  such  floods  of  tears.     Children  and  graybeards,  man 
and  woman,  slave  and  freeman,  beggar  and  prince,  all  poured* 
forth  their  tributary  tides  of  woe.     "  Behold,  how  they  loved 
him  !  "   will  all   Europe   say,   as  they  hear  this  exceeding 
bitter  wailing.     It  was  because  he  loved  them.     The  condi- 
tion of  the   highest  love  is  essential  here.      We  loved  him 
because  he  first  loved  us.     He  was  the  first  President  of  the 
United  States  who  seemed  to  carry  in  his  warmest  heart  the 
heart  of  all  the  people.    The  pertinacious,  cold-blooded  leech 
of  an  office-seeker  did  not  feel  that  he  was  answered  in  the 


560      THE   UNITER   AND   LIBERATOR   OF   AMERICA. 

selfish  spirit  which  inspired  his  zeal.  There  was  a  fatherly 
affection  even  in  the  refusal.  The  bitter  secessionist,  even 
the  relentless  rebel,  found  only  gentleness  and  love  in  his 
eye,  and  voice,  and  grasp.  They  were  constrained  to  feel 
that  they  had  become  prodigals  from,  nay  enemies  to,  a  most 
tender  and  still  affectionate  father. 

If  these  selfish  or  hostile  men  found  such  a  welcome,  how 
much  more  did  the  loyal.  The  degraded  slave  felt  the  warm 
clasp  of  that  paternal  hand  as  a  benediction.  The  most 
garrulous  griefs  were  poured  into  a  sympathetic  ear.  His 
patient  heart  allowed  every  head  to  lie  upon  its  broad,  soft 
pillow.  The  people  felt  the  throbbings  of  that  heart  warm- 
ly beating  for  them,  and,  like  a  tired  child  on  its  fnother's 
bosom,  sank  trustfully  to  rest. 

Far  more  than  his  sagacious  judgment,  incorruptible  in- 
tegrity, and  playful  humor,  did  his  deep  affection  for  the  na- 
tion support  and  carry  us  through  the  darkest  night  of  our 
history.  It  is  not  his  mother's  knowledge  of  what  is  best 
for  him,  not  her  lightsome  nature,  not  her  unceasing  faith- 
fulness, that  makes  the  sick  child  commit  himself  so  con- 
fidently to  her  arms.  It  is  her  love  that  makes  him  trust- 
ful. Her  judgment  may  err,  strength  may  yield,  joy  may 
flee,  but  love  never  faileth.  Many  waters  cannot  quench  it 
nor  floods  drown  it.  His  greatest  weakness  only  increases 
its  strength.  His  dying  makes  it  live  forever. 

So  has  the  nation  rested  in  his  loving  arms.  She  knew 
that  his  judgment  was  often  at  fault,  however  carefully  he 
exercised  it ;  that  sometimes  even  his  strength  of  purpose 
almost  trembled  under  the  fearful  pressure  to  which  it  was 
subjected ;  that  his  pleasant  smile  became  sadness,  and  the 
sunny  wrinkles  were  channels  for  many  tears.  He  had  never 
spoken  confidently  of  success.  The  mighty  struggle  he 
feared  might  result  disastrously ;  the  sick  nation  might  die ; 
but  dying  or  living,  she  felt  that  he  loved  her.  That  quality 
of  his  soul  was  undiminished.  Nay,  it  was  the  soul's  self, 
and  grew  the  stronger  when  all  else  grew  weaker. 


THE   DEATH   OF   ABKAHAM   LINCOLN.  561 

Never  did  a  great  people  so  universally  recognize  and  re- 
pay such  love  in  its  ruler.  Never  did  a  ruler  so  love  his 
people.  Cromwell  loved  religion  first ;  Wellington,  duty ; 
England  was  the  second  in  their  heart ;  her  people,  last. 
Napoleon  loved  himself,  not  France ;  Caesar,  power,  not 
Rome  ;  Washington,  the  country  more  than  its  people.  All 
the  great  leaders  of  the  Revolution,  all  the  great  living  lead- 
ers, reformatory,  civil,  and  military,  are  devoted  to  the  idea 
that  controls  them  :  this  to  liberty,  that  to  union  ;  this, 
America's  glory,  that,  her  destiny ;  this,  philanthropy,  that, 
piety ;  this,  justice,  that,  honor ;  this,  empire,  that,  pros- 
perity. Not  one  of  them  can  in  a  peculiar,  profound,  and 
personal  sense  be  said  to  love  the  American  people.  That 
grace  they  want.  Not  that  they  do  not  love  the  nation  ;  far 
from  it.  All  have,  all  do  ;  but  it  is  a  general,  not  a  special 
regard ;  an  affection  that  reveals  itself  in  other  forms  than 
mere  love.  Not  so  with  our  great  President.  He  held 
every  one  in  his  heart  of  hearts  ;  he  felt  a  deep  and  individual 
regard  for  each  and  all ;  he  wept  over  the  nation's  dead  boys 
at  Gettysburg  as  heartily  as  over  his  own  dead  boy  at  Wash- 
ington. Their  death,  more  than  his  own  child's,  was  the 
means  of  bringing  him  into  an  experimental  acquaintance 
with  Christ.  That  sorrow  wrought  in  him  a  godly  sorrow, 
which  has  become  a  joy  forever. 

Here  then  may  we  properly  conclude  his  portraiture.  It 
arises,  like  that  of  Him  in  whose  image  he  and  all  of  us  are 
made,  into  the  hights  of  love.  Without  profanity  we  may 
say  Abraham  Lincoln  is  love.  By  that  nature  will  the 
future  hail  him.  A  John  among  the  disciples,  he,  of  all  our 
public  men,  the  most  truly  possessed  and  expressed  the 
nature  of  his  Lord  and  Master.  Without  revenge,  without 
malice,  without  hardness  or  bitterness  of  heart,  he  held 
loyal  and  disloyal,  slave  and  master,  black  and  white,  rebel 
soldier  and  rebel  leader,  in  his  equal  Ipve.  Had  his  dying 
lips  been  allowed  to  utter  one  sentence,  we  think  it  would 
have  been  the  dying  words  of  Christ ;  and  for  his  assassin  he 
36 


562      THE   UNITER   AND   LIBERATOR   OF   AMERICA. 

would  have  prayed,  "  Father,  forgive  him,  for  he  knows  not 
what  he  does." 

It  is  for  this  trait  that  such  mourning  bows  the  land  ;  for 
this  are  the  streets  of  his  funereal  journey  lined  thick  with 
weeds  of  sorrow,  thicker  with  mourning  multitudes  ;  for 
this  do  the  subdued  eyes  of  millions  of  strong,  cool  men, 

"Albeit  unused  to  the  melting  mood, 
Drop  tears  as  fast  as  the  Arabian  trees 
Their  medicinal  gum." 

It  is  for  this,  preeminently,  that  the  despised  race,  free  or 
slave,  pour  forth  their  most  piteous  lamentations.  Their 
tears  of  joy  but  yesterday  are  almost  tears  of  blood  to-day. 
He  was  the  first  President  that  took  one  of  them  kindly  by 
the  hand ;  the  first  that  acknowledged  their  equal  right  with 
every  other  citizen  to  his  official  recognition.  He  was  not 
merely  their  military  liberator,  breaking  their  bonds  only 
because  he  could  thus  deliver  himself  from  his  enemies  ;  but 
he  was  their  friend  and  their  father,  carrying  them  in  the 
same  paternal  arms  in  which  he  bore  the  rest  of  his  children. 
AVell  may  they  cry  out,  as  they  see  him  thus  suddenly  leap 
into  a  chariot  of  fire  and  ascend  to  liis  reward,  "  My  father! 
my  father  !  "  Well  may  they  bewail  because  of  him  ! 

For  this  do  ten  thousand  steeples  knell  their  pathetic 
minor,  while  all  listening  hearts,  as  never  before,  beat 
responsive,  — 

"  Keeping  time,  time,  time, 
In  a  sort  of  Runic  rhyme, 
To  the  throbbing  of  the  bells, 

Of  the  bells,  bells,  bells, 
To  the  sobbing  of  the  bells ; 
Keeping  time,  time,  time 
To  the  rolling  of  the  bells, 
Of  the  bells,  bells,  bells, 
To  the  tolling  of  the  bells, 
Of  the  bells,  bells,  bells,  bells, 

Bdls,  bells,  bells, 
To  the  moaning  and  the  groaning  of  the  bells." 


THE   DEATH  OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN.  563 

Thus  stands  forth  the  character  of  this  great  man  :  of  un- 
blanched  and  unbending  soul  ;  without  selfishness,  yet  full 
of  feeling;  without  pride,  yet  ever  regardful  of  the  dignities 
of  his  position  ;  without  ambition,  yet  ascending  to  the  top- 
most hights  of  sovereignty,  and  absorbing  into  himself  more 
than  dictatorial,  far  more  than  imperial  and  kingly  powers ; 
without  the  least  malice,  yet  waging  the  bloodiest  of  wars  ; 
without  boastful  bitterness,  yet  making  myriads  of  his 
enemies  lick  the  dust ;  whose  most  loving  heart  ever  ir- 
rigated, yet  never  drowned  his  wise  brain,  making  that, 
which  is  often  in  others  a  verdureless  summit,  in  him  a  well- 
watered  garden  full  of  choicest  life. 

"  A  laborer  with  moral  virtues  girt, 
With  spiritual  graces,  like  a  glory,  crowned." 

Such  was  the  nature  of  him  to  whom  the  heart  of  the 
people  has  gone  out  as  never  before  to  any  ruler.  They 
revered  Washington,  they  respected  Adams,  they  believed 
Jefferson,  they  admired  Jackson,  they  loved  Lincoln.  God's 
gentleness  had  made  him  great. 

II.  How  this  character  revealed  itself  in  his  career,  there 
is  no  need  that  I  should  relate  unto  you.  The  details  of 
that  life  will  be  the  theme  for  many  a  historian.  Irvings 
will  yet  arise  who  will  devote  their  graceful  pen  to  the 
portraiture  of  this  second  Washington.  Carlyles  will  make 
the  splendor  of  their  genius  glow  around  the  head  of  this 
greater  than  Frederick,  or  Cromwell.  Napoleons  will  make 
him  a  more  faithful  study  and  model  than  Csesar.  With 
every  luxury  of  art  and  wealth  shall  the  grand  career  of  the 
cabin-boy  of  Kentucky,  the  Unite r  and  Liberator  of  America, 
stand  in  the  libraries  of  kings  and  statesmen,  in  humbler 
shape  and  larger  love,  on  the  shelves  of  all  their  people 
whose  future  that  life  both  illustrated  and  assured. 

1.  Two  dangers  threatened  the  land  when  he  assumed  the 
reins  of  government  —  disunion  and  slavery.  The  Scylla 


564        HE   UNITER   AND   LIBERATOR   OF   AMERICA. 

and  Charybdis  were  on  either  side  of  the  tossed  and  leaky 
vessel  when  he  took  the  helm.  Fierce  broke  the  waves  on  the 
rocky  Scylla  of  disunion  ;  more  fiercely  did  the  Charybdian 
sands  of  slavery  threaten  to  suck  the  ship  in  their  shifting 
and  ceaseless  maelstrom.  Both,  in  influence,  invaded  the 
whole  land.  A  great  party  in  the  North  supported  disunion 
under  the  specious  phrases  of  State  sovereignty  and  no  co- 
ercion ;  while  all  the  land  alike  hated  the  slave  and  his 
kindred,  and  refused  to  touch,  in  the  least,  the  iniquity  or 
its  victims.  The  President  shared  the  feelings  of  the  last, 
if  not  the  sentiments  of  the  first.  His  predecessor  yet  oc- 
cupying the  seat  of  government,  if  government  it  might  be 
called  which  had  ceased  to  govern,  was  calling  on  the  peo- 
ple to  fast  and  pray,  that  the  wayward  sisters  might  return. 
Great  men  carried  monstrous  petitions  wrapped  in  the 
powerless  American  flag  and  laid  them  before  Congress, 
entreating  that  body  to  consent  to  the  nationalizing  of 
slavery  by  giving  it  the  best  half  of  our  territory  and  all  our 
Constitution.  The  most  widely  circulated  paper  in  the 
land  declared  for  the  Montgomery  constitution,  and  had  its 
rebel  rag  all  ready  to  fling  to  the  breeze  when  Fort  Sumter 
should  be  attacked,  the  nation  utterly  cowed,  the  govern- 
ment overthrown,  and  Jefferson  Davis  made  President  of  the 
twenty-seven  Confederate  States  of  America — New  Eng- 
land alone  being  excluded  from  the  general  league.  She 
might  be  permitted,  if  she  chose,  to  retain  the  belittled  title 
of  the  United  States,  with  its  plucked  eagle  and  lowered  flag, 
—  the  Switzerland  of  America,  —  safe  only  in  the  contempt 
of  her  tyrannous  neighbors,  wide  ruling  the  continent. 

Beneath  all  this  turbulence  was  the  crowded  dungeon  of 
slavery.  Its  imprisoned  millions  toiled  and  suffered,  sighed 
and  prayed,  saw  visions  and  dreamed  dreams  such  as 
the  despised  Galileans  saw  in  Jerusalem  when  prelate  and 
Pilate,  ignorant  and  scornful,  were  seeking,  by  reconciliation 


THE   DEATH    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  565 

and  compromises,  the  union  of  the  God  of  the  Hebrews  with 
the  idols  of  Rome.  What  cared  we  for  these?  "Touch 
slavery  where  it  is  ?  "  "  Never  I"  "  Free  the  slaves  ?  " 
"Hang  him  who  dreams  that  dream."  "Up  with  John 
Brown  and  his  crazy  gang,  who  fancied  himself  the  Moses 
of  this  abominable  Israel."  How  that  first  martyr  but  now 
welcomed  the  last  to  the  rest  and  reward  of  the  faithful ! 
Brothers  in  this  service,  they  shall  be  brothers  in  heavenly 
fruition  and  eternal  renown.  "  Abolish  slavery  instantly 
and  forever  ? "  "  Impossible.  The  slaves  will  cut  their 
masters'  throats ;  will  invade  the  North,  and  expel  our  labor- 
ing population ;  will  become  the  vagabonds  of  the  con- 
tinent." 

Thus  warred  the  elements. 

"  Who  shall  calm  the  angry  storm  ? 
Who  the  mighty  task  perform, 
And  bid  the  raging  tumult  cease  ?  " 

We  pay  no  unwarranted  eulogy  to  President  Lincoln 
when  we  declare  that  the  peculiar  qualities  of  his  nature 
adapted  him  to  this  especial  work.  We  well  understand 
that  God  was  beneath  and  above  all  this  chaos,  breaking  the 
grievous  yoke  of  His  children,  and  moving  this  unwilling 
nation  into  higher  spheres  of  life  and  duty.  But  He  works 
ever  through  instruments,  arid  as  we  properly  study  the 
relation  of  the  human  nature  of  Moses,  of  David,  of  Paul,  to 
the  work  He  laid  upon  them,  so  may  we  that  of  our  leader 
to  what  he  was  set  to  do. 

(1.)  We  see  how  admirably  that  nature  was  fitted  for  its 
first  and  most  important  work  —  the  uniting  of  the  North. 
Whatever  other  duties  should  arise  ere  the  gigantic  task  was 
completed,  the  first  duty  evidently  was  to  make  the  loyal 
States  one.  They  were  weakened  by  the  severing  of  South- 
ern ties.  The  whole  structure  rocked  to  its  base.  North- 
western, Pacific,  Central,  and  North-eastern  confederacies 


566      THE   UNITER   AND   LIBERATOR    OF   AMERICA. 

were  projected.  Even  cities  threatened  to  assume  their 
independence.  The  Mayor  of  New  York  publicly  declared 
that  no  troops  should  pass  through  her  streets,  no  cannon 
leave  her  wharves  for  the  coercion  of  the  rebellious  States. 
Unless  we  could  be  united  the  whole  was  lost.  There  was 
otherwise  no  means  of  staying  the  movement  of  disunion  ; 
no  fulcrum  upon  which  to  plant  the  lever  of  emancipation ; 
while  to  secure  the  Union  was  to  destroy  slavery,  as  every 
rebel  knew.  Therefore  this  must  be  done. 

His  conciliatory  character,  joined  with  his  perfect  sim- 
plicity and  integrity,  was  the  centre  around  which  the 
Union  sentiment  rallied.  The  people  felt  that  they  could 
trust  him  with  their  liberties,  for  he  would  not  abuse  the 
trust.  The  hostile  party  found  it  hard  to  complain  of  so 
paternal  a  despot.  They  might  rave  at  his  acts  but  not  at 
him.  They  saw  that  the  salvation  of  the  country  was  his 
first  and  last  concern  ;  that  he  had  no  private,  no  party  ends 
to  serve,  but  only  those  of  God,  his  country's,  and  truth's. 
He  addressed  them  kindly  and  generously,  as  in  his  letter  to 
the  Democrats  of  New  York,  —  being,  we  presume,  the  first 
great  ruler  in  this  or  any  land  who  wrote  letters  to  his  peo- 
ple as  frankly  as  to  his  family.  He  thus  brought  many  of 
their  leaders  to  his  side,  so  that  in  his  army  and  in  his 
cabinet,  as  well  as  in  less  prominent  but  hardly  less  impor- 
tant fields,  many  of  these  earnest  foes  of  his  party  became 
his  warmest  supporters.  General  Butler  and  General  Dix, 
Senator  Dickinson  and  Edward  Everett,  Secretary  Stanton 
and  Senator  Douglas,  with  thousands  of  others,  gave  him 
their  earnest  and  cordial  support. 

His  conciliatory  nature  is  strikingly  seen  in  the  composi- 
tion of  his  first  cabinet.  It  contained  all  of  his  rivals  for 
the  nomination,  with  one  exception,  that  of  General  Banks, 
and  he  would  undoubtedly  have  had  the  bureau  for  New 
England,  had  he  not  taken  up  his  residence  in  the  West. 
Such  a  combination  of  independent  and  leading  minds,  rivals 


THE   DEATH   OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN.  567 

of  each  other  and  their  head,  has  never  been  seen  in  this 
laud  since  the  first  cabinet  of  Washington,  which  embraced 
in  it  three  rivals  of  each  other,  if  not  of  him,  —  three  favor- 
ites of  the  nation  for  his  chair ;  two  of  whom  sat  in  it,  and 
the  Constitution  was  modified  solely  that  the  third  could 
also,  —  an  event  which  might  have  happened  but  for  his 
assassination  by  Aaron  Burr. 

This  course  had  the  desired  effect.  The  country  rallied 
round  so  gentle  a  leader,  and  the  union  of  the  yet  undis- 
membered  fragments  was  secured.  The  feeling  of  the  land 
found  expression  in  its  chief,  and  the  various  orders  and 
mighty  number  of  traitors  yet  with  us  were  compelled  by 
popular  sentiment,  and  sometimes  by  popular  violence,  to 
conform  to  the  general  will. 

(2.)  Then  came  the  second  step,  —  the  conciliation  of  the 
border.  Each  side  essayed  this  work.  Their  sympathies 
and  their  sins  inclined  them  to  the  rebels,  their  instincts 
and  obligations  to  the  nation.  The  presence  of  our  army 
constrained  its  eastern  edge  to  our  side  ;  the  influence  of 
ideas,  its  western.  The  line  swayed  low  in  the  center, 
and  Kentucky  became  the  battle-ground  of  this  sentiment. 
Slowly  and  surely  the  truth  prevailed  there.  Against  their 
prejudices,  their  education,  their  habits,  their  institutions, 
they  ranged  themselves  under  the  flag. 

The  openly  rebellious  region  must  be  reduced  only  with 
arms.  How  these  fluctuated,  and  how  they  triumphed  only 
when  fortified  with  the  other  and  greater  idea  of  the  war, 
history  will  faithfully  show.  Here  his  nature  had  no  chance 
to  exert  its  influence.  Generalship,  not  statesmanship,  was 
what  that  work  demanded.  It  was,  however,  beginning  to 
do  so  when  his  career  closed.  He  had  other  material  than 
a  discontented  North  or  a  divided  border  to  operate  upon, 
and  might  have  failed  as  completely  there  as  he  had  suc- 
ceeded wonderfully  before.  Through  his  armies  there, 
through  himself  here,  he  had  closed  up  the  hideous  rent 


568     THE   UNITER  AND  LIBERATOR  OF  AMERICA. 

secession  had  made,  and  beheld  North  and  South,  East  and 
West,  again  and  forever,  one.  He  was  the  uniter  of 
America. 

'2.  But  a  still  greater  danger,  duty,  and  glory  were  before 
him.  We  were  an  enslaved  as  well  as  a  sundered  people. 
The  sighing  of  the  captive  had  upheaved  the  nation  from 
its  foundations.  The  closing  quotation  of  Mr.  Sumner's 
first  speech  against  our  national  sin  was  being  awfully  ful- 
filled: "Beware  of  the  groans  of  the  wounded  souls;  oppress 
not  to  the  utmost  a  single  heart ;  for  a  solitary  sigh  has 
power  to  overset  a  whole  world."  We  disregarded  those 
sighs,  not  solitary,  but  multitudinous  and  perpetual  as  the 
heavings  of  the  sea,  and  we  were  fast  reeling  to  our  down- 
fall. To  be  set  aright,  this  dungeon  must  be  opened.  Its 
millions  of  innocent  captives  must  go  free  This  people 
must  be  our  people,  their  God  our  God.  How  terrible  this 
task  !  It  is  ever  easier  to  conquer  our  judgment  than  our 
prejudice.  We  surrender  our  reason  sooner  than  our  heart. 
The  nation  hated,  despised,  detested,  the  black  man.  It 
preferred  slavery,  with  all  its  horrors,  to  immediate  and 
unconditional  emancipation.  So  did  Mr.  Lincoln.  But  God 
is  greater  than  man,  and  to  our  martyred  leader's  eternal 
honor  shall  it  ever  be  said,  God  found  him  willing  in  the 
day  of  His  power.  How  slowly  these  steps  were  taken, 
how  reluctantly,  how  unbelievingly  even,  we  all  know.  Yet 
taken  they  were.  Like  Jacob,  having  so  many  feeble  ones 
to  carry,  he  must  needs  travel  slowly ;  yet  he  moved  for- 
ward. Every  day  found  him  further  than  before. 

Conciliation  was  his  favorite  feeling  and  policy.  But  that 
cannot  be  adjusted  to  this  most  embittering  duty.  It  must 
stand  aside  for  a  season,  and  deeper  traits  must  be  brought 
into  service.  His  sense  of  right,  the  backbone  of  his  nature, 
which  alone  made  him  strong  in  the  fearful  strife,  saw  that 
there  was  no  other  path  than  this.  His  training  and  his 
feelings  shrank  from  the  negro  :  his  desire  to  shun  distract- 


THE   DEATH   OF   ABRAHAM  LINCOLN.  569 

ing  elements  made  him  shrink  from  him  yet  the  more ; 
but  duty  said,  "  Go  forward !  Pronounce  the  decree  of 
emancipation  !  Let  my  people  go  !  Take  them  by  your 
official  hand,  and  recognize  them  as  yours ! "  And  he 
obeyed. 

There  was  another  great  conciliator  by  his  side,  the  head 
of  his  armies,  the  worshiped  of  the  land.  He  heard  the 
like  voice,  but  refused  to  listen.  Reconciliation  and  eman- 
cipation he  declared  were  impossible.  He  had  the  ear  and 
the  heart  of  the  President.  He  warned,  he  threatened,  he 
besought.  Kentucky  begged  him  to  desist.  He  would 
mar  all  her  prospects  of  Union  if  he  pursued  that  course. 
The  influential  half  of  Missouri  petitioned.  Many  wise 
friends  from  the  North  entreated.  He  hesitated  till  dis- 
.  aster  overwhelmed  the  chief  adviser  of  this  delay,  till  the 
volunteer  inspiration  had  gone  out  in  blood,  and  the  sug- 
gestion of  a  draft  was  met  with  scowls  and  threats  of  defi- 
ance from  every  quarter.  The  ship  was  lying  on  her  beam- 
ends.  All  God's  waves  and  billows  were  going  over  her. 
The  rocks  of  anarchy  were  thrusting  their  sharp  fangs  into 
her.  Only  the  throwing  overboard  of  this  demon  can  save 
her.  •  He  clung  to  the  idol  yet  a  little,  and  made  one  more 
prayer  to  its  worshipers  to  come  into  the  ship  and  save 
their  god.  They  heard  and  jeered.  They  had  a  better 
craft,  built  for  the  sole  worship  of  their  deity.  They  en- 
tered no  amalgamating  vessel  of  freedom  and  slavery.  He 
kept  his  word.  Slavery  was  tumbled  into  the  bottomless 
gulf.  The  waves  roared,  and  hissed  the  fiercer.  Secession 
broke  its  bands  among  us,  and  raged  in  the  streets  of  Nor- 
thern cities.  But  all  in  vain.  The  Ship  of  State  began  to 
right  itself.  The  voice  of  Christ  calmed  the  sea.  The 
rocks  of  disunion  were  submerged,  and  the  quicksands  of 
slavery  disappeared  forever  from  the  view.  The  slave  be- 
came a  man,  a  warrior, — will  soon  be  a  citizen,  and,  merged 
in  the  currents  of  society,  be  lost  in  the  indistinguishable 


570      THE   UNITER  AND   LIBERATOR   OF   AMERICA. 

throng  that,  from  all  nations  and  lands,  rejoice  in  the  com- 
mon blood  and  name  of  American. 

Thus  will  he  stand  forth  in  all  coming  time.  To  him  was 
decreed  the  greatest  honor  history  has  conferred  on  man. 
His  sole  peer  is  the  father  of  our  country ;  and  he  is  not  his 
superior.  Alike  in  many  traits  of  character,  alike  in  many 
points  of  career,  they  will  share  together  the  reverent  grati- 
tude of  succeeding  generations.  Their  statues  will  rise  in 
every  city,  before  every  eye.  The  one  delivered  the  nation 
from  the  yoke  of  vassalage  -to  a  once  paternal,  but  then 
tyrannical  power ;  the  other  released  her* from  the  deadlier 
grasp  of  a  once  fraternal,  but  then  far  more  tyrannical  domin- 
ion. The  one  organized  her  embryotic  communities  into  States 
and  a  Nation.  The  other  reorganized  these  belligerent  re- 
publics into  a  solid  and  perpetual  Union.  The  one  liberated  . 
three  millions  of  his  own  hue  from  foreign  despotism  ;  the 
other  liberated  four  millions  of  another  color  than  his  own, 
from  a  despotism  infinitely  more  horrible.  The  influence 
of  both  shall  go  forth  for  the  redemption  and  regenera- 
tion of  all  lands.  The  whole  world  shall  sit  rejoicingly 
at  the  feet  of  Washington  and  Lincoln.  Happy,  proud 
America  !  that  from  her  soil  sprang,  over  her  soil  reigned, 
in  her  soil  sleep  the  creator  and  the  redeemer,  under  God, 
of  her  land  and  of  the  world. 

We  will  not  dwell  upon  the  defects  in  this  character  ;  for 
the  service  it  was  set  to  do,  it  was  fully  competent ;  from 
other  service  God  has  mercifully  relieved  it.  As  his  proto- 
type failed  to  see  and  to  carry  out  the  full  workings  of  the 
principle  he  inaugurated,  —  as  another  Virginian  was  to  be 
the  perfectcr  of  the  doctrine  of  democracy  which  God  in- 
tended should  here  have  complete  expression,  and  the  great 
leader  was  removed  so  that  his  influence  might  not  embarrass 
this  movement  of  Providence,  —  even  so  may  this  second 
Washington  have  been  summoned  to  his  reward,  in  order 
that  the  perfection  of  that  democracy  may  the  more  speedily 


THE   DEATH   OF  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  571 

hasten  forward.  It  could  not,  perhaps,  have  been  done  be- 
fore. The  country  had  been  so  reduced  by  previous  theories 
of  State  rights,  and  of  long  submission  to  an  oligarchy  of 
human  flesh,  that  it  could  not  instantly  know,  much  less 
discharge  its  whole  duty.  The  web  of  the  new  era  might 
have  been  rent,  had  it  been  then  subjected  to  severer  strain. 
But  this  crime  has  made  its  lace  iron, — the  Northern  iron 
and  the  steel,  —  and  we  shall  henceforth  be  strong  enough, 
we  hope  just  enough,  to  confer  equal  citizenship  upon  all 
the  nation.  We  must  not  only  nor  chiefly  punish  the  re- 
bellious leaders.  This  may  be  our  primary,  though  not  our 
principal  duty.  The  loyal  freedman  must  have  his  full  rights 
as  a  man.  For  this  is  the  new  President  raised  up  ;  not,  as 
most  say,  to  be  the  juster  judge,  but  to  be  the  truer  demo- 
crat. The  last  involves  the  first.  The  conditions  of  the 
rebel  and  his  former  slave,  excepting  slavery,  may  be  re- 
versed. No  citizenship  for  the  rebel  leader ;  perfect  citizen- 
ship for  his  slave.  No  land  for  the  chiefs  of  the  rebellion, 
homesteads  for  his  loyal  bondmen.  Expatriation,  which 
was  urged  upon  the  negro,  not  three  years  ago,  may  be  en- 
forced upon  his  master.  The  African  had  no  rights  these 
would  respect.  These  may  have  none  the  nation  will  respect. 
Outlawed,  homeless,  exiled,  —  these  once  mighty  rulers  of 
the  land  may  thus  expiate  their  crime  of  treason,  while  their 
victims  take  their  homes  and  their  crowns.  The  first  shall 
be  last,  and  the  last  first. 

Whatever  be  the  fate  of  the  rebel,  the  enfranchisement  of 
the  negro  alone  can  renew  that  land.  We  have  found  that 
our  salvation  could  not  be  effected  without  the  aid  of  their 
bullet.  We  shall  yet  find  that  it  cannot  be  preserved  with- 
out the  aid  of  their  ballot.  It  is  impossible  to  hang,  banish, 
or  disfranchise  the  half  a  million  former  aristocrats  of  the 
South.  Neither  confiscation  of  their  lands  nor  emancipation 
of  their  slaves  can  annihilate  their  power.  They  cannot 
thus  be  prevented  from  vaulting  into  authority  again.  The 


572      THE   UNITER   AND   LIBERATOR   OF   AMERICA. 

white  serfs  who  have  so  faithfully  fought  their  battles  will 
assuredly  honor  their  military  commanders  with  civic  power. 
What  can  make  and  keep  them  powerless  ?  Negro  suffrage. 
Nothing  less  is  needed.  Set  the  four  millions  of  the  freed- 
men  over  against  the  six  millions  of  white  peasantry,  and 
let  them  grapple.  We  shall  soon  see  who  are  the  real  men 
of  that  region.  These  loyal  masses  will  see  to  it  that  the 
disloyal  tyrants  do  not  trouble  the  nation  further.  They 
will  be  the  owners  of  the  soil,  and  the  masters  of  their  mas- 
ters. They  shall  rule  over  their  oppressors,  and  preserve 
thus  the  liberty,  the  unity,  the  peace  of  America. 

To  this  consistent  and  complete  democracy  the  new  Jef- 
ferson is  summoned.  If  true  to  his  principles,  and  trium- 
phant over  the  base  prejudices  of  birth  and  breeding,  he 
will  shine  by  the  side  of  his  forerunner,  equal  in  service, 
gratitude,  and  fame.  We  trust  that  he  will  be  thus  faithful, 
and  that  we  shall  grow  as  steadily  after  the  divine  pattern 
in  the  healthful  sunshine  of  a  hastening  peace,  as  in  the  fear- 
ful midnight  of  the  most  bloody  of  wars. 

Let  us  not  be  blinded  from  higher  duties  by  our  just  ven- 
geance against  the  assassin.  His  sin  will  quickly  find  him 
out.  That  sin  no  death  can  adequately  punish.  Yet  Booth 
is  but  a  babe  in  iniquity  compared  with  Lee.  The  assassin 
never  reigns  in  history  by  the  side  of  the  rebellious  chief. 
He  has  secured  a  horrible  notoriety.  With  Clytemnestra 
the  assassinator  of  Agamemnon,  king  of  men ;  with  Ravaillac, 
who  slew  the  best  king  that  France  ever  knew,  he  shall 
hang  forever  on  the  gibbet  of  infamy. 

Yet  he  is  but  the  dagger's  point ;  Lee  is  its  polished 
handle  ;  Slavery  the  force  that  drove  it  home.  Shall  we 
wreak  our  vengeance  on  the  bullet,  and  let  him  that  fired 
it  go  free  ?  The  miserable  felon  assassinated  our  leader. 
The  yet  unharmed  general  attempted  to  assassinate  the  na- 
tion. We  have  been  wrestling  in  his  murderous  clutch  for 
four  years,  and  received  innumerable  stabs  in  our  attempts 


THE   DEATH   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  573 

to  prevent  our  destruction.  Is  the  nation  less  than  one  of 
its  citizens  ?  Shall  we  fawn  upon  her  would-be  murderer, 
and  tear  his,  in  our  rage,  into  a  thousand  atoms  ?  Nay,  he 
too  is  a  murderer.  Not  alone  of  the  hundreds  of  thousands 
whom  he  has  slain  in  battle,  but  of  the  multitudes  that  he 
has  starved  to  death  in  his  prisons.  He  has  ridden  daily 
under  the  walls  of  these  charnel-houses,  where  they  were 
perishing  for  a  crust  of  bread,  and  never  relented  for  an  in- 
stant at  the  piteous  meanings  that  almost  made  the  walls 
to  groan.  When  the  bony  arm  of  one  of  our  boys  is  thrust 
between  the  bars,  he  not  daring  to  put  his  face  thpre,  know- 
ing that  the  sentinel's  bullet  would  strike  him  dead,  and  a 
poor  slave-woman  thrusts  a  bit  of  bread  into  his  hand,  that 
sentinel's  bullet  instantly  spatters  heV  brains  upon  the  side- 
walk. And  that  guard  was  a  soldier  of  Robert  E.  Lee,  a 
traitor  colonel  of  the  army  of  the  United  States,  who,  de- 
spite his  barbarities  to  our  men  in  the  field,  our  captured 
soldiers,  and  these  lowly  creatures,  whom  we  are,  by  the 
command  of  God,  especially  required  to  protect,  dwells 
among  its  unharmed,  almost  in  honor.  What  was  the  mis- 
erable actor's  crime  to  his  ?  We  should  do  solemn  justice 
to  the  greatest  traitors  in 'our  hand,  as  we  shall  to  him  if 
Providence  shall  place  him  in  our  power. 

But  whether  we  are  firm  or  feeble,  God  will  make  both  to 
praise  Him.  How  marvellous  are  His  ways  !  Out  of  un- 
speakable crimes  He  has  revealed  His  glory.  Out  of  the 
violence  of  the  slave-master  has  come  liberty  to  all  lie  held 
in  bondage  ;  out  of  the  attempted  murderers  of  the  nation, 
a  more  perfect  nationality  ;  out  of  the  successful  murder  of 
its  head,  a  more  thorough  and  speedy  regeneration.  Thus 
has  it  been  most  strangely  verified  before  all  nations,  in  the 
experience  of  these  transgressors,  that 

"  Power  to  the  Oppressors  of  the  world  is  given, 
A  might  of  which  they  dream  not.     0,  the  curse, 
To  be  the  awakener  of  divinest  thoughts, 


574      THE   UNITER   AND   LIBERATOR   OF   AMERICA. 

Father  and  Founder  of  exalted  deeds, 

And  to  whole  nations,  bound  in  servile  straits, 

The  liberal  Donor  of  capacities 

More  than  heroic  !     This  to  be,  nor  yet 

Have  sense  of  one  connatural  wish,  nor  yet 

Deserve  the  least  return  of  human  thanks ; 

Winning  no  recompense  but  deadly  hate 

With  pity  mixed,  astonishment  with  scorn." 

Such  is  the  fate  of  Davis,  Lee,  and  Booth.  They  have 
the  painful  consciousness  of  having  been  the  unwilling-  in- 
struments of  the  very  ends  they  strove  to  frustrate.  They 
have  united,  liberated,  fraternized  America,  and  yet  are  and 
ever  shall  be  linked  with  Pharaoh  and  Judas,  Caiaphas  and 
Pilate,  the  execrated  of  men. 

Thus  have  all  things*  worked  together  for  our  good,  so  far 
as  we  have  loved  God.  From  the  beginning  has  He  held 
us  in  His  hand.  He  has  ever  prevented  our  sins  from  de- 
stroying us.  Good  and  evil  were  in  our  earliest  history,  as 
in  our  latest.  Raleigh  and  the  slave-trade  gave  their  con- 
trary impress  to  Virginia ;  the  Pilgrims  and  persecution  to 
Massachusetts  ;  Huguenots  and  slavery  to  South  Carolina  ; 
the  Dutch  greed  of  gain  and  love  of  liberty  to  New  York. 
The  wheat  and  the  tares  have  grown  together  until  now. 
Yet  always  has  He  been  guarding  the  wheat  from  utter 
.spoliation.  He  has  eliminated  the  evil,  and  educed  the 
good.  He  has  made  our  sins  and  our  sufferings  go  hand  in 
hand,  our  penitence  and  our  progress.  He  has  changed  New 
England  intolerance  into  firmness  for  the  right,  New  York 
covetousness  into  rivers  of  beneficence.  He  will  change 
the  Virginia  slave-trade  into  righteous  traffic,  and  South 
Carolina  slavery  into  the  grandest  liberty  of  this  continent. 
The  conscientious  contraries  shall  also  become  a  harmonious 
whole.  The  Huguenot  of  Carolina  and  the  Puritan  of  New 
England,  the  Roman  Catholic  of  Maryland  and  Episcopalian 
of  Virginia,  the  Quaker  of  Pennsylvania  and  Dutch  Protest- 
ant of  New  York,  the  Baptist  of  Rhode  Island  and  Methodist 


THE   DEATH    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  575 

of  the  prairies,  shall  yet  form,  not  the  broad,  but  the  true 
Church  of  our  Lord  and  Savior  Jesus  Christ,  on  whose  divine 
foundation  the  nation  shall  stand  in  perpetual  unity,  holiness, 
and  love.  Thus  may  we  learn  to  more  perfectly  confide  in 
His  guidance  and  grace  who  has  so  wonderfully  revealed 
His  constant  presence  in  our  planting  and  our  growth,  and 
who  has  shown  here,  as  elsewhere  in  His  kingdom, 

"  That  many  things,  having  full  reference 
To  one  consent,  may  work  contrariously ; 
As  many  arrows,  loosed  several  ways, 
Come  to  one  mark ;  as  many  ways  meet  in  one  town, 
As  many  fresh  streams  meet  in  one  salt  sea, 
As  many  lines  close  in  the  dial's  center, 
So  may  a  thousand  actions,  once  afoot, 
End  in  one  purpose." 

Let  us,  then,  show  our  grief  for  our  loss  by  greater  faith- 
fulness to  the  cause  for  which  he  died.  The  grandeur  of 
this  cause,  in  its  past,  present,  and  future,  was  remarkably 
revealed  in  his  most  memorable  word  and  most  memorable 
deed,  with  which  his  career  was  properly  crowned.  The 
last  inaugural  is  that  word,  —  the  entry  into  Richmond,  the 
deed.  That  word  is  the  most  truthful,  humble,  and  Chris- 
tian, that  a  ruler  ever  addressed  to  his  people.  It  contains 
the  clearest  recognition  of  the  divine  will,  the  humblest 
prostration  before  His  offended  goodness,  the  amplest  con- 
fession of  the  righteousness  of  His  punishments,  the  largest 
"beneficence  to  his  own  most  deadly  foes. 

How  sadly  it  prophesies  his  own  fate  !  His,  too,  must  be 
of  the  blood  which  God  requires  from  the  sword  to  repay 
that  drawn  by  the  lash,  for  two  hundred  years,  from  the 
shrinking  flesh  of  His  innocent  children. 

His  dying  speech  from  the  national  throne  will  be  read 
with  Wet  eyes  by  our  children's  children.  If  the  farewell 
address  of  Washington  will  ever  be  cherished  by  the  nation, 
much  more  will  this  more  profound  and  pathetic  confession 


576      THE   UNITER   AND   LIBERATOR   OF   AMERICA. 

of  our  sins,  more  resolute  expression  of  our  duty  and  pur- 
pose to  eradicate  them,  be  admiringly  read  by  remotest 
generations.  It  lacks  no  element  of  perfection.  So  short 
that  he  that  runs  may  read  it ;  so  simple  that  the  most  child- 
ish can  understand  it ;  so  statesmanlike  in  its  principles  that 
the  rulers  of  the  world  can  profitably  study  it ;  so  religious 
that  the  most  pious  can  find  in  it  the  holiest  nutriment ;  so 
philanthropic  that  largest  souls  can  grow  larger  in  its  air ; 
so  clement  that  the  hardest  heart  cannot  but  melt  in  its 
perusal, — it  is  the  consummate  flower  of  executive  orations. 
Jeremiah  could  not  wish  it  more  penitential,  Ezekiel  more 
resolute,  John  more  affectionate.* 

It  was  a  worthy  requiem.  He  sung  his  swan  song,  sad, 
sacred,  solemn,  sweet.  The  voice  of  the  ages,  from  David 
to  Christ,  went  wailing  through  the  strain.  It  will  yet  be, 
as  it  should  be,  the  most  popular  and  powerful  word  of 
America. 

But  if  the  last  inaugural  was  his  litany,  the  advent  into 
Richmond  was  his  jubilate.  No  picture  of  the  war  will  be 
so  frequently  painted.  It  was  in  extraordinary  agreement 
with  his  whole  life  and  character,  in  extraordinary  disagree- 
ment with  that  of  every  other  eminent  ruler.  Here  was  a 
more  than  emperor,  who  for  four  years  had  waged  severest 
war  with  a  portion  of  his  own  people,  that  had  made  this 
their  capital.  Under  many  generals  had  he  essayed  its  cap- 
ture. Blood  had  flowed  around  it  like  water.  Still  had  it 

*  The  "London  Spectator  "  truly  says  of  him  and  it,  "  He  lias  per- 
severed through  all  obstacles,  without  ever  giving  way  to  anger,  or  de- 
spondency, or  exultation,  or  popular  annoyance,  or  sectarian  fanaticism, 
or  caste  prejudice,  visibly  growing  in  force  of  character,  in  self-posses- 
sion, and  in  magnanimity,  till  in  his  last  short  message  of  the  Fourth  of 
March  we  can  detect  no  longer  the  rude  and  illiterate  mold  of  a  village 
lawyer's  thought,  but  find  it  replaced  by  a  grasp  of  principle,  a  dignity 
of  manner,  and  a  solemnity  of  purpose,  which  would  have  been  un- 
worthy neither  of  Hampden  nor  of  Cromwell,  while  his  gentleness  and 
generosity  of  feeling  toward  his  foes  are  almost  greater  than  we  should 
expect  of  either  of  them." 


THE   DEATH    OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  577 

proudly  resisted  the  whole  strength  of  his  armies.  At  length, 
after  bloodiest  encounters  and  almost  a  year  of  siege,  it  had 
fallen  into  his  hands.  How  should  he  take  possession  of 
his  prize  ?  How  have  all  conquerors  exulted  over  such  a 
conquest  ?  When  Charles  the  Bold  captured  Liege,  he  com- 
pelled its  citizens  to  batter  down  a  new  entrance  in  their 
walls,  through  which  he  marched  in  triumphant  pomp  and 
scorn.  When  Louis  the  Great's,  and  David's  generals  reduced 
a  rebellious  city,  they  sent  for  their  royal  masters  to  take 
stately  possession.  Our  grand  monarch  is  near  by  when 
his  great  general,  as  great  as  their  greatest,  has  won  for 
him  the  long-coveted  prize,  and  all  the  country  is  aflame 
with  joy.  Does  he  enter  it  in  royal  state  ?  He  sends  a 
grand  deputation  to  take  formal  possession  of  rescued  Sum- 
ter.  He  himself  walks  up  the  streets  of  the  capital  of  the 
rebellion  attended  by  twelve  marines  and  half  a  dozen  officers 
and  friends,  without  music  or  banners,  or  military  or  civic 
pomp.  Thousand  of  unshackled  slaves  dance  around  him 
in  an  uncontrollable  ecstasy  of  delight.  They  look  upon  the 
face  of  their  deliverer.  To  them  it  shines  like  that  of  Moses 
as  he  descended  from  the  mount.  Like  the  lame  man  un- 
chained of  his  life-long  fetters  of  infirmity,  they  precede  and 
follow  this  to  them  chief  of  Christ's  apostles,  walking  and 
leaping  and  praising  God.  They  too  have  been  unchained 
of  life-long  fetters,  that  have  made  them  sit  at  the  Beautiful 
gate  of  the  temple  of  knowledge  and  liberty,  powerless  to 
move,  hopeless  of  salvation. 

Their  sneering  master  and  mistress  (such,  thank  God,  no 
longer  !)  scowl  from  their  windows  upon  him  and  the  tumul- 
tuous crowd  of  beggared  blacks  that  throng  him,  as  Saul's 
daughter  did  upon  the  rejoicing  David,  despising  him  in 
their  hearts.  They  do  not  mar  his  calm  content  nor  the 
delight  o'f  the  noisy  escort  who  guide  the  ruler  both  of  them- 
selves and  of  their  former  masters  to  the  residence  of  the 
fled  usurper.  He  is  indifferent  to  their  contempt,  and  only 
37 


578      THE   UNITER   AND   LIBERATOR   OF   AMERICA. 

regards  the  wonderful  salvation  of  which  he  has  been  the 
chosen  instrument,  but  which  Jesus  of  Nazareth  has  alone 
effected. 

As  Christ  entered  into  Jerusalem,  the  city  that  above  all 
others  hated,  rejected,  and  should  soon  slay  Him,  attended 
by  those,  but  now  lame  and  blind  and  deaf  and  leprous, 
whom  He  had  cured,  so  did  this,  His  servant,  enter  the  city 
that  above  all  others  hated  and  rejected  him,  and  would  soon 
be  the  real  if  not  intentional  cause  of  his  death,  attended  by 
thousands  who  had  been  saved  from  worse  maladies  than 
those  bodily  diseases,  out  of  whom,  in  a  moment,  legions  of 
devils  that  had  long  possessed  them  had  been  instantly  and 
forever  expelled  by  the  same  Divine  Redeemer,  through  His 
appointed  word.  "  Behold  thy  king  cometh,  meek,"  is 
most  beautifully  true  here  and  now.  The  haughty  tyrant  is 
gone,  the  loving  father  is  come.  Well  may  their  glad  hearts 
dance  for  joy.  Well  may  the  air  ring  with  their  jubilant 
hallelujahs.  Well  may  the  paternal  President  feel  the  com- 
fort and  strength  of  the  hour.  The  blessings  of  those  that 
were  ready  to  perish  came  upon  him.  His  work  draws  near 
its  close.  The  nation  is  united,  the  rebel  subdued,  the  slave 
set  free.  His  cup  is  full.  He  can  well  exclaim,  "  Now, 
Lord,  lettest  thou  thy  servant  depart  in  peace,  for  mine 
eyes  have  seen  Thy  salvation,  and  the  glory  of  Thy  people 
Israel." 

How  near  that  departure  was  !  This  was  his  Palm  Sun- 
day. Ten  days  elapse,  his  Good  Friday  comes,  and  he  fol- 
lows his  Divine  Master,  through  like  bloody  hands,  to  his 
Savior's  glorious  eternity. 

Thus  did  our  king  enter  his  strong  cit3r.  Thus  did  he 
triumph  over  his  Philistia.  The  story  will  be  wrought  in 
song  and  canvas,  over  the  world  and  adown  the  ages,  as  a 
most  beautiful  and  most  rare  expression  of  a  Christian  tri- 
umph. It  will  live  with  the  last  act  of  John  Brown,  —  his 
kiss  upon  the  slave-child's  cheek,  —  each  the  perfect  flower- 


THE   DEATH   OF   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  579 

ing  of  his  earthly  life.  With  such  a  word  as  the  inaugural, 
and  such  a  deed  as  this,  we  may  truly  feel  that  his  life  was 
rounded  to  a  perfect  close.  He  could  properly  hear  the 
voice  of  the  Master  saying,  "It  is  enough;  come  up  higher! 
Thou  hast  been  faithful  over  a  few  things,  I  will  make  thee 
ruler  over  many  things.  Enter  thou  into  the  joy  of  thy 
Lord." 

His  work  is  done.  Ours  is  yet  unfinished.  His  place  in 
history,  and,  we  trust,  in  heaven,  is  sure.  Ours  is  yet  to  win. 
We  shall  show  our  admiration  for  him  more  by  completing 
his  work,  than  by  standing  too  long  gazing  steadfastly  into 
the  heavens  whither  he  has  ascended. 

As  he  constantly  moved  forward  with  the  advancing  hour, 
so  must  we.  To  pause  where  he  stopped  is  to  go  backward. 
Let  us  keep  step  with  God  in  every  path  of  Christian  and 
patriotic  duty,  enlarging  the  bounds  and  upbuilding  the 
walls  of  the  kingdom  of  Christ  by  our  faith,  our  zeal,  our 
love.  Then  shall  we  best  express  our  sorrow  over  him  who 
fell  so  untimely,  yet  so  timely,  and  become,  if  riot,  like  him, 
a  martyr,  at  least  a  witness  for  and  a  worker  with  our  God. 
Then  shall  we  be  a  sharer  of  his  labor  and  his  reward. 
What  a  reward  it  is  to  him  whose  most  peaceful  nature  was 
compelled  to  most  stormy  and  repulsive  service  !  How 
ineffably  sweet  must  be  the  quiet  and  repose  of  the  banks 
of  the  river  of  life,  after  this  dark  and  bloody  night  of  earth 
and  time  !  There  he  rests  from  his  labors,  and  his  works  — 
how  many  and  how  mighty  !  —  do  follow  him,  and  shall  for- 
ever follow.  There  he  worships  the  Chief  of  the  martyrs,  — 
whose  form  like  his  was  pierced  by  the  murderous  stroke, 
whose  soul  like  his  was  bowed  with  sorrows  not  His  own, 
whose  life  like  his  was  given  for  the  redemption  of  others 
than  Himself.  Before  that  Savior  does  he,  thoughtless  of 
self,  bow  in  bliss  and  gratitude  unknown  to  earthly  hearts. 
Through  His  infinitely  greater  service  and  sacrifice  has  he, 
a  poor  slave  of  sin  and  hell,  found  everlasting  redemption 


580      THE   UNITER   AND   LIBERATOR   OF   AMERICA. 

and  equal  citizenship  with  the  unfallen  angels  of  God.  Let 
us,  like  him,  though  with  eyes  dimmed  by  tears  and  time, 
gaze,  in  faith,  on  the  illustrious  Martyr  of  the  universe,  our 
Savior,  our  Redeemer,  our  God.  Let  us  consecrate  our- 
selves, soul,  body,  and  spirit,  to  that  divinest  purpose,  for 
whose  establishment  He  poured  out  His  soul  unto  death, 
and  to  whose  completion  He  has  allowed  so  many  of  His 
disciples  to  feebly  but  gratefully  follow  Him  afar  oif,  in  like 
sacrifice  of  themselves  upon  the  altar  of  their  faith,  —  as- 
sured that,  under  His  supervision,  despite  the  seeming  tri- 
umphs of  men  and  devils,  that  cause  is  steadily  advancing 
to  its  earthly  and  eternal  consummation. 


PEACE:  HER  GIFTS  AND  DEMANDS/ 


"  THEY  ARE  DEAD  THAT  SOUGHT  THE  YOUNG  CHILD'S  LIFE." —  Mat- 
thew ii.  20. 

"  THE  LORD  GAVE  THEM  REST  ROUND  ABOUT,  ACCORDING  TO  ALL  THAT 
HE  SWARE  UNTO  THEIR  FATHERS  J  AND  THERE  STOOD  NOT  A  MAN  OF 
ALL  THEIR  ENEMIES  BEFORE  THEM;  THE  LORD  DELIVERED  ALL 
THEIR  ENEMIES  INTO  THEIR  HAND.  THERE  FAILED  NOT  AUGHT  OF 
ANY  GOOD  THING  WHICH  THE  LORD  HAD  SPOKEN  UNTO  THE  HOUSE 
OF  ISRAEL;  ALL  CAME  TO  PASS."  —  Joshua  xxi.  43-45. 

jfjUT  one  Fourth  of  July  has  ever  occurred  that 
equals  the  one  which  has  just  been  celebrated 
with  tumult  and  joy  unspeakable.  That  was  the 
first  that  came  after  peace  was  made,  and  our 
independence  was  acknowledged  by  the  parent  government. 
After  eight  years  of  wasting  war  ;  after  thousands  of  their 
youth  and  men  of  years  had  fallen  in  death  ;  after  their 
prosperity  had  given  way  to  long  and  fearful  poverty,  and 
the  national  sovereigns,  crowns,  shillings,  and  even  pennies, 
that  had  been  the  stable  and  general  reward  of  industry  and 
basis  of  wealth,  had  given  place  for  years  to  a  miserable 


A  sermon  preached  in  Boston,  Sunday,  July  9,  18G5. 

(581) 


582  PEACE:   HER   GIFTS   AND   DEMANDS. 

paper,  many  dollars  of  which  could  not  buy  a  British  shil- 
ling, and  whose  fluctuations,  even  on  its  almost  worthless 
base,  paralyzed  trade  and  defrauded  labor  of  its  due  ;  after 
anarchy  and  hatred  of  brother  against  brother,  such  as  only 
our  Southern  section  has  lately,  reproduced,  had  raged 
through  all  the  land,  as  violently  in  Boston  as  in  South 
Carolina,  then  came  the  gray  flush  of  the  approaching  day. 
Exhausted  England  rested  long  and  longer  between  her 
attacks,  until  at  Yorktown,  hemmed  in  by  allianced  France 
and  America,  she  surrendered  her  hold  and  hopes,  and  ac- 
knowledged our  independence.  The  following  Fourth  of 
July  was  a  day  of  widest  and  wildest  delight. 

Such  has  been  the  past  anniversary.  We  have  heard 
the  joy  and  praise  that  with  bell,  and  martial  march,  and 
music,  and  roar  of  multitudinous  cannon,  have  shaken  the 
skies  ;  that  with  the  voice  of  praise,  and  prayer,  and  dis- 
course of  reason,  and  passion  of  oratory,  have  lifted  the 
sotils  of  the  people  to  Him  whose  right  hand  and  whose 
mighty  arm  hath  gotten  Him  the  victory.  We,  t6o,  have 
just  emerged  from  a  wide  and  wasting  war.  Our  finances 
have  plunged  into  an  abyss,  which,  but  for  the  unexam- 
pled confidence  and  strength  of  the  people,  would  have 
proved  as  fatal  to  our  wealth  as  was  the  continental  cur- 
rency to  that  of  our  fathers.  Our  foes  have  been  they 
of  our  own  household.  Brother  has  wrestled  with  brother 
in  dying  agonies.  Half  a  million  of  our  sons  sleep  in 
their  own  blood.  The  cloud  of  sorrow  has  wrapped  mil- 
lions of  hearts  in  the  pall  of  the  grave.  For  four  years 
has  the  terrific  struggle  gone  on,  until  at  last  the  sulphu- 
rous cloud  moves  off,  and  the  light  of  returning  day  glad- 
dens every  eye. 

It  is  well  to  come  together  in  the  house  of  God,  and  lift 
humble  and  grateful  hearts  to  Him.  It  is  well  in  the  awak- 
ening day,  to  consider  the  blessings  and  the  duties  with 
which  He  is  now  crowning  us.  Let  us  then  turn  our  eyes 


THE   END    OF   THE    WAR.  583 

inward  and  heavenward,  discerning  the  will  of  God  and  the 
willingness  of  man. 

I.  The  first  great  blessing  which  peace  brings  us  is 
Peace.  She  herself  is  a  treasure  worthy  our  warmest  love. 
War  is  ever  horrible.  Whatever  grand  disguises  it  puts 
on,  in  pornp  of  dress,  array,  and  melody ;  in  the  excitement 
of  the  strife,  when  men  put  on  the  action,  and  put  within 
them  the  heart  of  the  tiger  ;  in  the  bloody  feast  of  tele- 
grams and  pictures  of  the  battle,  on  which  the  public  appe- 
tite feeds  with  a  greediness  of  delight  that  reveals  our  kin- 
dred to  our  cannibal  ancestors,  and  shows  that  we  are  one 
.with  those  who  yet  find  their  most  exhilarating  beverage  to 
be  the  blood  of  their  victims,  and  his  flesh  to  be  their  sweet- 
est viand.  Notwithstanding  all  these  terrific  uplifts  of  soul 
which  it  creates,  it  is  still  a  volcano  of  death  and  horror. 
You  may  admire  the  armless,  legless  heroes  that  feebly  move 
through  your  streets.  You  would  hardly  wish  to  exchange 
your  soundness  of  body  for  their  wounds  and  weakness. 
You  may  seek  to  cheer  the  weeping  father,  mother,  wife, 
and  child  with  your  cheap  phrases  of  duty,  patriotism,  and 
glory.  But  you  would  not  exchange  your  embodied  love 
for  theirs,  disembodied  and  unapparent.  You  would  not 
empty  your  house  of  its  head  or  its  heart,  in  order  that  you 
might  fill  your  desolate  soul  with  memories  of  goodness  or 
greatness.  Human  hearts  crave  visible,  embraceable  be- 
ings, on  which  to  lavish  their  love.  Heaven  to  the  heart- 
sore  is  desirable,  because  it  will  disclose  the  evanished 
faces  of  the  loved,  and  restore  to  our  arms  their  long-lost 
forms. 

Those  who,  therefore,  prate  flippantly  of  the  glories  of 
martyrdom  for  the  right,  are  not  those  who  bleed  inwardly 
and  constantly  in  consuming  sorrow.  You  never  hear  the 
parents,  whose  son  will  brighten  their  aged  eyes  no  more, 
parade  this  theme  in  wordy  eulogy.  You  never  hear  the 
widow,  cast  into  an  outer  and  inner  mourning,  that  only 


584  PEACE:   HER   GIFTS   AND   DEMANDS. 

death  can  cure,  by  the  dreadful  disasters  of  battle,  who 
is  ever  crying  out  in  the  darkness  of  her  home  and 
heart,  — 

"  O  that  it  were  possible, 

After  long  years  of  pain, 
To  feel  the  arms  of  my  true  love 
Round  me  once  again !  " 

You  never  hear  such  wounded  souls  discoursing  on  the 
beauties  and  grandeur  of  war.  That  is  well  enough  for 
orators,  and  editors,  and  parlor  knights,  and  dames  ;  it  is 
not  the  speech  of  these  who  humbly  say,  with  firm-set  lips, 
and  tumultuous,  agonized  heart,  "  I  was  dumb,  and  opened 
not  my  mouth,  because  Thou  didst  it."  "  Thy  will,  not 
mine,  be  done." 

Nay,  war  is  a  horror  of  horrors.  Thank  God  it  has  fin- 
ished its  direful  course.  Thank  God  that  the  marches  of 
our  mighty  legions  have  ceased  ;  that  we  no  more  sup  on 
such  horrors  as  were  served  up  to  us  on  the  dreadful  night 
of  Bull  Run,  and  by  Ball's  Bluff,  and  Chickamauga,  and 
Murfreesboro',  and  Fredericksburg,  and  the  Wilderness,  and 
Spottsylvania,  and  Fort  Pillow,  and  a  hundred  other  like 
fearful  names.  These  telegrams,  dripping,  nay,  deluged  in 
blood,  are  not  served  up  as  our  daily  food.  And  those 
more  horrible  accompaniments  of  the  bloody  feast,  —  Libby 
and  Belle  Isle,  Andersonville  and  Salisbury,  —  they  too  are 
gone,  and  gone  forever. 

Talk  not  of  the  glories  of  war.  As  well  talk  of  the  glow- 
ing pageant  of  the  Judgment,  when  the  great  day  of 
God's  wrath  is  come,  and  who  shall  be  able  to  stand.  Some 
may  fancy  that  they  will  gaze  with  artistic  eye  on  that 
terrific  spectacle.  They  have  so  dwelt  upon  it  in  earthly 
imagination ;  they  have  set  their  highest  genius  to  depict 
the  scene.  Rubens,  Cornelius,  Fra  Angelico,  and  greatest 
of  all,  Michael  Angelo,  have  set  forth  its  fearful  splendors 


THE   END   OF   THE   WAR.  585 

with  sublimest  pencil.  Yet  what  are  they  by  the  side  of 
the  unspeakable  reality?  —  the  blazing-  earth,  the  dissolv- 
ing1 heavens,  the  arising  dead,  the  assembled  multitudes, 
the  great  white  throne,  from  whose  presence  earth,  and 
heaven  flee  away,  and  there  is  no  place  found  for  them ; 
the  Judge  severe,  the  wonderful  Son  of  God,  the  enrap- 
tured saints,  the  shuddering,  flying,  falling  sinners.  Ah, 
why  fancy  that  a  Michael  Angelo,  by  covering  a  narrow 
wall  of  a  little  chapel  with  pigment,  can  body  forth  that 
spectacle  of  spectacles  ! 

So  dream  not  that  your  talk  of  war,  or  pictures  of  war, 
embodies  its  realities.  No  tongue,  no  heart  can.  Its  riven 
frames,  its  ghastly  dead,  its  unutterable  groanings,  its  shock 
of  demons  leaping  at  each  other,  —  all  this  is  over,  may  it 
be,  forever.  That  blessing  peace  bestows. 

But  peace  also  gives  us  the  blessing  of  ordinary  law. 
War  not  only  destroys  the  happiness,  it  weakens  the  sta- 
bility of  society.  We  have  lived  for  four  years  in  fear  of 
losing  our  liberties  as  well  as  our  lives.  Those  liberties 
have  been  suspended.  The  ancient  and  essential  landmarks 
of  human  progress  and  protection  have  been  submerged  in 
the  deluge  of  blood.  Our  prime  minister  not  only  said 
that  he  could,  by  touching  a  little  bell,  consign  any  one 
to  prison  :  he  did  it.  Had  he  so  chosen,  he  might  have 
consigned  them  to  death  also.  Hundreds  were  thus,  with- 
out warrant  or  accusation,  cast  into  jail  ;  others  were  ban- 
ished from  the  land,  and  all  held  their  liberties  at  the  tenure 
of  the  government.  The  Constitution  as  well  as  the  laws 
was  suspended,  and  military  despotism  swayed  the  land. 
The  government  professed  to  maintain  some  of  its  forms, 
yet  it  claimed  the  power  to  disregard  them  all,  and  did 
often  disregard  most.  The  President  appointed  generals, 
who  held  commissions  as  members  of  Congress,  contrary 
to  its  direct,  letter.  He  refused  to  execute  laws  which 


586  PEACE:   HER   GIFTS   AND   DEMANDS. 

Congress  enacted  ;  refused  to  remove  those  whom  it  ordered 
to  be  cashiered  ;  and  though  carefully  regarding  their  will, 
when  he  could  consistently  with  his  own  duties,  he  as  care- 
fully disregarded  it  when  he  decided  that  such  disregard 
was  best.  This  lawlessness  and  super-Constitutionalism 
have  come  to  an  end.  The  forms  of  law  resume  their 
authority.  The  President  becomes  again  the  servant  of  the 
Constitution.  The  little  bell  of  his  secretary  can  no  more 
be  a  knell,  summoning  its  hearer  to  heaven  or  to  hell.  It 
has  lost  its  power  over  the  liberty  or  life  of  man.  The 
courts  resume  their  benign  and  calm  control  ;  Congress  can 
legislate,  supreme  in  its  sphere.  The  people  enjoy  the 
serene  repose  of  liberty  under  law.  Great,  unspeakably 
great,  is  this  gift  of  peace. 

II.  But  while  peace  in  itself  is  thus  blessed  and  bless- 
ing, this  peace  witnesses,  though  it  did  not  not  confer,  yet 
greater  blessings  than  deliverance  from  war  and  despotism. 
It  ushers  in  the  morning  of  Liberty.  What  a  contrast  does 
this  national  birthday  exhibit  in  comparison  with  its  late 
predecessors.  Five  years  ago  this  anniversary  was  cele- 
brated with  quaking  hearts.  For  thirty  years  the  great 
iniquity  had  grown  by  the  national  principles,  and  policy, 
and  power  upon  which  it  had  fed,  until  it  domineered  over 
most,  and  threatened  all  the  land.  The  nation  rocked  under 
the  Presidential  conflict.  Bitterest  hate  burned  in  multitu- 
dinous breasts.  The  Union  should  perish  if  the  candidate 
of  freedom  was  elected.  Many  hearts  fainted  with  fear. 
Others,  and  enough,  were  courageous  despite  their  fears. 
That  Fourth  of  July  was  black  and  lowering.  The  next 
was  far  darker.  Our  men  lay  in  their  intrenchments  beyond 
the  Potomac.  Bloody  skirmishes  in  Baltimore,  and  at  Alex- 
andria where  Ellsworth  had  fallen,  betokened  the  coming 
storm.  Washington  was  surrounded  with  fortifications  ; 
the  country  was  filled  with  armed  men. 


THE   END   OF   THE   WAR.  587 

"The  steed, 

The  mustering  squadron,  and  the  clattering  car, 
Went  pouring  forward  with  impetuous  speed, 
And  swiftly  forming  in  the  ranks  of  war." 

Three  hundred  thousand  soldiers  were  summoned  to  arms. 
The  white  villages  of  Northern  invaders  dotted  many  a 
Southern  knoll,  and  the  blue-breasted  hosts  trod  defiantly 
their  hostile  fields.  Anxiously,  tearfully  awaiting  the  rising 
of  the  curtain,  and  the  opening  of  the  great  tragedy,  the 
people  gathered  to  their  birthday  festival.  What  s'blemn 
appeals  marked  that  hour !  what  stern  resolves !  what 
earnest  declarations  of  duty  !  what  searching  of  ourselves. 
Yea,  what  indignation  ;  yea,  what  fear  ;  yea,  what  vehe- 
ment desire  ;  yea,  what  zea-l ;  yea,  what  revenge.  In  all 
things  we  were  approving  ourselves  to  be  clear  in  the  great 
matter  with  which  God  was  testing  the  sincerity  of  our 
repentance.  But  the  cloud  lay  along  the  sky  black  and 
muttering,  and  shooting  forth  occasional  shafts  of  death. 
The  storm  broke  soon  in  all  its  fury.  Not  twenty  days 
from  that,  Bull  Run  was  lost,  and  panic  and  seeming  national 
dissolution  swept  the  land. 

The  next  anniversary  was  more  doleful.  We  had  gath- 
ered up  courage,  plucked  a  young  commander  from  the 
Western  mountains,  glorified  him  with  the  title  of  the  Young 
Napoleon,  put  him  at  the  head  of  two  hundred  thousand 
men,  and  sent  him  down  to  sweep  away  the  enemy.  Mean- 
time a  hardly  regarded  officer  had  opened  the  gates  into 
Tennessee,  and  another  had  fought  his  way  down  the  Mis- 
sissippi, while  a  third  had  seized  the  harbors  of  North  and 
South  Carolina,  and  still  a  fourth  had  taken  possession  of 
New  Orleans.  But  all  eyes  were  turned  from  these  lesser 
lights  of  Burnside,  arid  Dupont,  and  Butler,  and  Farragut, 
and  Foote,  and  Grant,  and  gazed  intently  on  the  commander 
of  the  Potomac.  That  Fourth  of  July  saw  him  defeated, 


588  PEACE:   HER   GIFTS   AND   DEMANDS. 

and  after  untold  slaughter,  driven  from  the  eaves  of  the 
rebel  Capitol  in  irretrievable  disgrace  and  ruin. 

Again  the  nation  was  on  its  face,  and  sorrow  and  dismay 
tore  its  soul.  That  Fourth  of  July  covered  a  year  of  blood 
and  anguish.  What  multitudes  had  bit  the  dust !  Since 
less  than  three  weeks  after  the  previous  anniversary,  when 
Bull  Run  opened  the  sluiceways  of  blood,  what  channels  of 
gore  had  poured  over  the  land  !  And  all  seemingly  in  vain. 
Their  heart  was  yet  unsubdued  ;  their  resources  mighty  ; 
their  territory  scarcely  entered. 

Another  year  rolls  round  :  the  great  word  of  Liberty  had 
been  spoken,  but  the  more  greatly  longed-for  word  of  Peace 
had  not  been  heard.  So  far  from  it,  those  three  days  pre- 
vious the  most  terrible  battle  of  the  whole  war  had  been 
raging,  and  multitudes  were  lying  unburied  on  the  field  of 
Gettysburg.  And  though  the  Mississippi  was  opened,  its 
tidings  did  not  intensify  the  morning  pagans.  War  still 
raged  ;  the  conflict  was  yet  uncertain.  The  foreign  powers 
looked  scorniugly  on;  the  breaking  waves  dashed  high  over 
the  laboring  vessel.  That  Fourth  of  July  was  as  sad  as 
any  of  its  forerunners.  The  smile  was  enforced ;  the  cheer 
hollow  ;  hope  deferred  was  breaking  the  heart.  Still  the 
nation  stood  firm  to  its  principles.  It  went  steadily  onward 
in  its  career  of  justice  and  righteousness.  It  grew  higher 
and  higher  in  the  divine  stature. 

Our  last  birthday  was  in  some  respects  our  darkest.  Each 
side  had  put  forth  all  its  strength  for  the  final  struggle. 
Each  felt  that  it  was  the  last  time.  If  defeated,  it  did  not 
seem  possible  that  we  could  rally  again.  We  had  brought 
to  the  head  the  best  military  talent  at  our  command,  and 
had  given  them  every  soldier  and  weapon  they  could  use. 
The  two  who  had  risen  by  steady  success  to  the  highest 
positions,  were  each  held  at  bay  by  unsubdued  armies.  One 
had  already  sacrificed  threescore  thousand  even  in  his  march 
to  Richmond,  and  was  powerlessly  battering  its  gates.  The 


THE   END   OF   THE    WAK.  589 

other  was  pushing  slowly  and  painfully  through  the  rocky 
ramparts  of  northern  Georgia,  far  yet,  and  seemingly  hope- 
lessly far,  from  the  walls  of  Atlanta.  No  gloomier  hour 
has  shut  down  upon  us  since  the  war  began.  The  bells 
almost  tolled,  ring  them  merrily  as  they  may,  so  dismal 
were  our  rejoicings.  The  whole  head  was  sick,  the  whole 
heart  faint.  The  resolution  of  the  Lieutenant  General  hardly 
sustained  the  public  faith.  The  mercury  sank  into  the 
bulb.  Traitors  stalked  boldly  through  the  land,  and  held 
open  conference  with  the  armed  rebels  against  the  govern- 
ment. The  Presidential  contest  was  beginning  to  agitate 
the  nation,  and  liberty  and  nationality  were  to  be  subjected 
to  a  test  such  as  they  never  before  suffered,  much  less  en- 
dured —  that  of  a  popular  vote  on  the  very  question  of  the 
national  existence,  in  the  hour  when  almost  one  half  of  her 
children  were  in  arms  against  her. 

Dark,  how  dark,  total  eclipse,  was  that  hour !  The  sun 
was  turned  into  blackness,  and  the  moon  into  blood.  The 
stars  of  heaven  fell  as  when  a  fig-tree  shaketh  its  untimely 
figs.  We  almost  saw  the  sheeted  dead  walk  gibbering 
through  the  streets.  If  we  failed  in  the  field  and  at  the 
ballot-box,  if  we  failed  in  either,  all  was  lost.  Liberty  went 
out  into  returnless  night.  The  rights  of  man  disappeared 
from  the  face  of  the  earth.  Free  institutions  were  at  an 
end.  Caesarism  was  the  law  of  this,  as  of  all  preceding 
ages.  Democracy  was  'a  vanished  bubble,  man  a  slave, 
humanity  a  delusion,  Christianity  a  lie. 

No  one  will  ever  forget  that  dreadful  day.  The  guns 
were  almost  minute  guns,  firing  a  funereal  salute  over  the 
dead  empire  of  man.  The  orations  were  eai-nest  and  cour- 
ageous, but  plaintive  and  dreary.  Congress  issues  a  most 
penitential  confession  and  cry  to  fasting  and  prayer.  The 
nation  put  on  sackcloth,  and  lay  upon  its  face  before  the 
Lord. 

Thus  similar  in  sadness,  solemnity,  and  anxiety  were  our 


590  PEACE:   HER   GIFTS   AND   DEMANDS. 

last  five  anniversaries.  How  different  this  !  Peace  might 
have  brought  us  another  kind  of  a  gift.  It  might  have 
come  with  our  armies  overthrown,  our  land  rent  in  twain, 
our  liberties  gone,  defiant  and  triumphant  hosts  lining  the 
farther  bank  of  the  Potomac  and  the  Ohio,  feuds  raging 
in  every  Northern  State  and  city,  our  debt,  currency,  busi- 
ness, and  wealth  alike  worthless,  while  Slavery  lifted  her 
crested  head,  and  hissed  her  triumphs  in  the  ear  of  an  amazed 
and  ruined  world.  No  blessing  would  such  a  peace  have 
won  us,  but  misery  and  death. 

Far  otherwise  has  been  the  gift  and  goodness  of  God. 
He  bestows  upon  us  a  peace  that  is  full  of  richest  rewards  ; 
one  in  which  the  spirit  of  rebellion,  rampant  in  the  land  for 
thirty  years,  raging  like  an  unloosed  menagerie  for  four 
years,  has  been  disarmed,  if  not  subdued  ;  in  which  the 
fiercer  demon  of  Slavery  has  been  cast  out  of  the  nation  at 
once,  and  forever,  and  four  millions  of  her  long-suffering 
children  are  sitting  at  her  feet,  clothed  and  in  their  right 
mind  ;  one  in  which  the  nations  of  the  earth  that  despised 
us,  and  desired  our  destruction,  are  constrained  to  stand  in 
awe  of  the  majesty  of  our  strength  and  the  greater  majesty 
of  our  continence,  and  behold  their  systems  of  restraint 
and  misgovernment  crumbling  like  banks  of  mist  before  our 
rising  sun. 

The  salvation  of  other  vital  ideas  is  worthy  of  espec- 
ial rejoicings.  Peace  has  not  only  brought  liberty,  it  has 
secured  the  perpetuity  of  a  free,  and  equal,  and  united 
nation.  They  are  dead  that  sought  the  young  Child's  life. 
The  best  civil  expression  of  the  'Gospel  of  Him  of  Bethle- 
hem was  in  extremest  peril.  It  was  the  youngest  of  politi- 
cal forms,  too  often  spoken  of  by  ourselves  as  an  experi- 
ment ;  always  thus  regarded  across  the  seas.  Against  this 
central  necessity  of  a  truly  Christian  state,  against  the 
only  possible  system  of  permanent  and  righteous  govern- 


THE  END   OF  THE   WAK.  591 

ment,  arose  the  mighty  rebellion.  It  not  only  planted  it- 
self on  human  bondage,  it  allied  itself  with  thrones.  Mr. 
Mason  claimed  the  sympathy  of  the  British  aristocracy,  be- 
cause the  idea  and  purpose  of  his  government  were  one 
with  their  forms  and  principles.  He  won  it  because  of  this 
unity.  The  young  child  of  a  democratic  Union  was  thus 
fearfully  assailed.  It  has  survived  its  assailants.  So  far 
as  possessing  any  power  of  renewing  their  attack,  they  are 
dead  that  sought  the  young  child's  life.  The  Gospel  of  the 
Son  of  God  can  now  grow  in  its  civil  and  national  expres- 
sion, unalarmed  by  the  foes  of  its  own  household.  They 
have  become  its  footstool.  They  will  yet  be  its  faithful 
servants  and  supporters.  All  the  imperial  powers  that 
joined  in  heart  and  lip  in  the  murderous  endeavor,  will  ac- 
knowledge its  triumph,  and  conform  their  institutions  to  its 
ordinances  divine. 

Such  are  some  of  the  gracious  favors  with  which  God 
has  been  pleased  to  crown  this  hour  and  people.  It  is  the 
grand  Sabbatic  jubilee  of  the  nation.  She  rests  from  her 
painful  labors.  Her  work  of  creation  has  greatly  progressed, 
if  it  has  not  attained  completion.  She  can  justly  rejoice 
in  the  propitious  hour. 

"  Grim  visaged  "War  has  smoothed  his  wrinkled  front." 

The  bells  have  rung  merrily  their  sacred  summons  to  the 
altar  of  thanksgiving.  Again,  and  as  never  before,  can  we 
join  in  the  psalm  of  peace  and  praise. 

"  Joy  to  the  pleasant  land  we  love, 

The  land  our  fathers  trod; 
Joy  to  the  land  for  which  they  won 

Freedom  to  worship  God ; 
For  peace  on  all  its  sunny  hills, 

On  every  mountain  broods, 
And  sleeps  by  all  its  gushing  rills, 

And  all  its  mighty  floods. 


592  PEACE:   HER   GIFTS   AND   DEMANDS. 

"  The  wife  sits  meekly  by  the  hearth, 

Her  infant  child  beside ; 
The  father,  on  his  noble  boy, 

Looks  with  a  fearless  pride. 
The  gray  old  man,  beneath  the  tree, 

Tales  of  his  childhood  tells ;       . 
And  sweetly  in  the  hush  of  morn 

Peal  out  the  Sabbath  bells." 

Especially  can  we  add  the  last  verse  of  these  lines,  and 
feel  that  the  joy  and  peace  are  now  truly  attained.  Then 
the  poet  was  constrained  to  add. 

"  And  we  are  free  —  but  is  there  not 

One  blot  upon  our  name? 
Is  our  proud  record  written  fair 

Upon  the  scroll  of  fame  ? 
Our  banner  floateth  by  the  shore, 

Our  flag  upon  the  sea; 
But  when  the  fettered  slave  is  loosed 

We  shall  be  truly  free." 

That  fetter  has  fallen,    that  liberty  secured,  and   calm   is 
complete. 

III.  But  the  Sabbath,  though  a  day  of  rest,  is  still  more 
a  day  of  work.  Never  do  duties  press  more  steadily  upon 
us  than  on  these  days  of  God.  Never  has  the  Creator  been 
more  active  than  since  He  ceased  from  six  days  of  creation, 
and  entered  upon  the  present  Sabbath  of  earth  and  time. 
The  grosser  work  is  ended  of  forming  sun,  and  moon,  and 
stars,  and  earth  ;  of  bringing  into  being  trees  and  plants, 
fish,  and  bird,  and  beast  ;  even  the  highest  of  this  material 
handiwork,  the  fashioning  of  man ;  but  the  spiritualizing  of 
that  man,  his  preservation  in  purity,  his  growth  into  fami- 
lies, communities,  nations  of  holy  ones,  his  restoration  if 
he  falls,  and  by  a  long  and  painful  path,  which  God  Him- 
self must  build  and  traverse  in  sorrow  unto  death,  his  at- 


THE   END   OF   THE    WAR.  593 

tainment  of  the  beatific  state  of  universal  brotherhood,  a 
developed,  happy,  holy  world  —  all  this  is  the  work  of  the 
seventh  day,  the  Sabbath  of  God  and  of  the  world. 

So  we  have  accomplished  the  grosser  work  of  physical 
subjugation,  and  are  called  to  enter  the  spiritual  service  of 
regeneration.  The  armies  are  scattered,  the  forts  possessed, 
the  cannon  mounted  by  trusty  soldiers,  the  flag  respected 
and  obeyed,  the  whole  land  freed  from  open  rebellion.  This 
work  of  creation  is  completed. 

But  a  greater  yet  remains.  The  inward  work  is  yet  to 
be  done  —  a  work  in  us  no  less  than  in  the  region  this  sin 
has  so  long  made  a  hell,  and  God's  judgments  have  made 
an  Aceldama. 

That  work  is  one  in  idea,  though  manifold  in  form.  It  is 
this,  and  this  only,  and  this  entirely  —  to  erase  from  our 
statutes,  our  tongues,  our  hearts,  every  recognition  of  color 
as  a  badge  of  distinction  or  separation  between  man  and 
man.  The  outer  work  of  this  regeneration  is  accomplished, 
the  inner  is  yet  unachieved;  the  material,  or  six  days' work, 
is  done,  the  spiritual  or  Sabbath  duty  is  begun.  The  outer 
work  was  to  break  the  chains  of  the  slave,  and  put  a  mus- 
ket in  his  hands,  to  fight  for  himself  and  his  country. 
These  two  acts  accomplished,  proved  him  at  the  least,  and 
at  the  most,  but  a  physical  man.  The  iiarness  of  slavery 
had  made  him  a  brute.  lie  was  like  the  ox  and  the  mule 
by  whose  side  he  toiled.  I  have  seen  one  di'iving  his  team 
afield,  with  a  vivid  scns.e  of  the  slaveholding  feeling  that 
they  were  substantially  one.  Both  had  been  bought  or 
raised  on  the  farm  ;  both  had  a  market  value  ;  both  had 
been  or  could  be  sold  ;  both  were  as  much  objects  of  prop- 
erty as  the  plough  which  united  them.  The  purchaser  of 
stock  put  them  together  in  his  bill,  the  assessor  in  his 
schedule,  the  sheriff  in  his  sale.  The  people  spoke  of  so 
many  head  of  slaves  as  they  did  of  so  many  head  of  cattle. 
38 


594  PEACE:   HEK   GIFTS   AND   DEMANDS. 

Until  this  yoke  was  removed  no  inward  regeneration  could 
be  effected.  God  might  shine  in  upon  him  and  sanctify  him. 
He  might  warm  his  heart  with  the  breath  of  earthly  love, 
make  him  a  devoted  son,  husband,  and  father,  make  him  an 
humble,  joj'ful  Christian ;  but  man  could  not  recognize  these 
inner  and  spiritual  gifts,  as  they  were  not  marketable  com- 
modities. They  must  not  interfere  with  their  marketable 
qualities.  Suppose  a  steam  engine  should  fall  in  love,  and 
awaken  in  his  mate  reciprocal  emotion  ;  suppose  they  should 
feel  that  they  must  go  and  keep  together,  irrespective  of  any 
rights  of  corporations  or  individuals,  what  would  the  busi- 
ness men  say  at  such  an  intrusion  upon  their  domain  ? 
They  would  declare  this  thing  must  be  stopped,  or  all  our 
property  vanishes.  If  the  internal  heat  of  locomotives  takes 
this  amorous  and  self-dependent  form,  what  may  happen  to 
our  stores,  and  houses,  and  fields,  and  cattle,  even  stocks 
and  gold?  These  coldest  of  creatures  will  feel  the  general 
warmth  with  which  Lucretius  tells  us  all  nature  reciprocates 
the  affection  of  its  Creator. 

Two  elephants,  the  papers  said,  last  winter,  hybernating 
together  at  Pittsburg,  fell  in  love.  Their  tender  attachment 
was  the  theme  of  much  gossip  and  amusement  on  the  part 
of  probably  their  more  callous  keepers.  Spring  came,  and 
their  different  owners  said  they  must  be  separated.  Grief 
and  rage  extreme  tore  the  hearts  of  the  noble  beasts  at  the 
enforced  decree.  Alas,  multitudes  of  men  and  women, 
tender,  deep,  and  true,  whose  hearts  and  lives  God  had 
made  one,  have  been  torn  apart  by  far  more  cruel  hands 
over  half  our  land  for  hundreds  of  years.  The  wants  and 
wishes  of  their  proprietors  came  between  the  feelings  of 
these  legal  beasts,  and  husband  and  wife,  mother  and  babe, 
have  been  as  carelessly  parted  as  dam  and  foal,  or  cow  and 
calf,  a  span  of  horses,  or  a  yoke  of  oxen. 

I  had  before  me  as  I  was  writing  this  discourse  the  auc- 


THE   END   OF   THE   WAR.  595 

tion  bills  of  Charleston,  in  which  are  described  the  creatures 
to  be  sold,  with  their  names  and  ages.  I  read  such  names, 
ages,  and  descriptions  as  these:  "Cicero,  55,  driver;  Hester, 
20,  field-hand,  prime,  one  eye  lost  by  an  accident."  The  ac- 
cident that  happened  to  this  young  lady  and  "  prime  field- 
hand  "  may  be  easily  imagined.  It  was  probably  not  un- 
like that  accident  which  happened  to  Isabella  Joyce,  that 
terminated  her  life  in  awful  tragedy.  "  Maud,  16,  field- 
hand,  prime."  A  pretty  name,  a  Maud  Muller,  only  with  an 
infinitely  worse  fate.  "  Infant,  6  mos."  The  creature  had  not 
yet  attained  to  the  dignity  of  a  name,  save  that  name  which 
makes  every  parental  heart  throb  in  love  —  a  babe  upon  the 
block,  and  no  mother  specified.  One  among  the  lot  may 
have  been  its  agonized  mother,  and  may  not.  "March,  35 ; " 
who  is  described  as  "a  field-hand,  and  A  1  cook."  "Joe, 
18,  prime  field-hand,  two  years  at  carpenter's  trade,"  is 
yoked,  we  trust  lovingly  and  righteously,  with  "  Julia,  16 
years  of  age."  This  young  carpenter  and  his  youthful  com- 
panion, knocked  down  to  the  highest  bidder,  like  a  pair  of 
horses  at  auction,  give  you  some  faint  idea  of  the  horrors  of 
that  hell  of  hells.  Listen  still  further:  "  Flora,  seamstress, 
24,"  with  "Jemmy,  30,  and  James  and  Charles,  5  and  1," 
probably  their  children,  James  being  the  dignified  title  with 
which  she  honors  her  husband  in  his  boy.  "Abram,  2  years 
old,"  and  "  Binah,  2  mos.,"  are  on  the  list.  "Lucy,  a  crip- 
ple, 60,"  "  Lucy,  a  nurse,  58  ;  "  another  carpenter,  also 
named  "Joe,  aged  25."  Perhaps  this  name  was  given  to  these 
artisans  because  the  father  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  was  of 
that  name  and  trade.  It  was  an  appropriate  title  and  call- 
ing. No  doubt  their  Lord  and  Master  often  toiled  with 
them  at  their  task.  This  Joe  had  a  little  family,  "Amcy,  27, 
Louisa,  8,  and  Joe,  Jr.,  3."  They  all  brought  seven  hundred 
and  fifty  dollars,  as  a  clerkly  pencil  writes  on  the  paper. 
Kate,  a  babe  of  a  year,  goes  into  the  iron  mill ;  William,  of 


596  PEACE:   HER   GIFTS    AND   DEMANDS. 

the  same  age:  Molly,  standing  alone,  a  maiden  of  22  sum- 
mers, brings  the  handsome  figure  of  thirteen  hundred  and 
fifty  dollars.  "May,  9  mos.,  Aaron,  6  mos.,  Lizzy,  1  year, 
Emma,  3,"  pretty  names  are  these  ;  pretty  faces  we  doubt 
not ;  pretty  souls,  certainly,  as  they  look  weeping  and  ago- 
nized up  to  the  face  of  their  like  weeping  and  agonized  Lord. 
More  than  a  hundred  such  names  are  on  these  three  bills 
of  sale  at  The  Mart,  as  this  haunt  of  hell  was  by  distinc- 
tion called.  How  they  point  to  the  myriads  whose  fate 
they  shared ! 

See  you  not,  my  friends,  that  slavery  must  be  destroyed  ere 
the  first  step  in  manhood  is  taken.  These  sons  and  daugh- 
ters of  the  Lord  God  Almighty  must  be  taken  from  the  list 
of  merchantable  things  and  made  into  men  and  women. 

Before  this,  not  human  feelings  alone  were  disregarded, 
the  Divine  Spirit  was  despised.  He  might  renew  them  in 
holiness.  He  might  say  to  them,  "Ye  are  no  longer  your 
own ;  ye  are  bought  with  a  price ;  ye  are  the  servants  of  the 
Lord  your  Redeemer."  But  these  men  step  in,  Christians  pro- 
fessedly, and  say,  "  We  hold  them  still  as  ours.  What  care 
we  for  the  Holy  Ghost  ?  He  may  renew  their  heart.  He 
may  make  them  free  men  in  Christ  Jesus,  He  cannot  make 
them  free  from  us.  Should  a  revival  of  religion  break  out 
among  our  mules,  would  that  spoil  them  for  our  fields  or 
markets."  So  they  mocked  the  God  of  heaven,  and  he  has 
rained  upon  them  fire  and  brimstone,  and  a  horrible  tempest, 
and  this  has  been  the  portion  of  their  cup.  Beholding  such 
dreadful  deeds  committed  by  lordly  merchants,  supported  by 
eminent  jurists  and  statesmen,  sanctified  by  consecrated 
divines,  carried  on  for  generations,  against  every  pulse  of 
humanity,  every  call  of  conscience,  even  entreaty  of  God, 
how  could  we  expect  any  other  doom  ?  It  is  only  amazing 
that  God  has  borne  with  it  as  long  as  He  has.  His  long 
suffering  is  greater  than  when  "  He  waited  in  the  days  of 


THE   END   OF   THE   WAK.  597 

Noah  while  the  ark  was  a  preparing."  His  ark  now  has 
been  long-  preparing.  The  North  has  been  ripening  in  con- 
science under  the  preaching  of  many  Noahs  until  the  nation 
was  ready  to  become  the  ark  of  shelter  for  these  suffering 
children.  Then  came  the  flood.  Death  has  leaped  into 
their  houses,  while  their  slaves  walk  out  in  freedom.  Their 
sons  perish  by  myriads,  their  prophets  flee,  their  pride  falls  : 
what  pride  and  what  a  fall !  Their  ruin  is  complete,  while 
those  that  they  had  stolen,  and  sold,  and  scourged,  and 
ravished,  and  treated  with  unutterable  inhumanity,  dwell 
harmless  amid  their  conquerors'  desolation.  Never  was 
there  such  a  contrast  in  the  same  land  at  the  same  time. 
The  slave  lost  nothing  for  they  had  naught  to  lose.  The 
hatred  and  fear  of  the  master  prevented  his  employment  of 
them  in  battle,  and  so  they  have  escaped  the  death  which 
has  invaded  every  other  class  in  all  the  land.  They  were 
valueless  as  merchandise,  and  therefore  their  sale  and 
separation  ceased.  They  were  eased  in  toil  and  free  from 
the  lash,  for  they  found  favor  in  the  eyes  of  their  masters 
when  it  was  seen  that  the  families  of  those  who  fought  for 
their  bondage  must  be  intrusted  to  their  keeping. 

Thus  has  light  been  in  captive  Goshen,  while  darkness  was 
on  Pharaoh's  palaces ;  thus  have  no  death-wails  broken  from 
their  riven  hearts,  while  in  almost  every  other  household  has 
there  been  lamentation  and  bitter  mourning. 

As  we  see  this  divine  punishment  and  protection,  we  can 
but  exclaim,  Just  and  true  are  thy  ways,  Lord  God  Almighty. 
Thou  hast  cast  down  the  mighty  from  their  seats,  and  ex- 
alted them  of  low  degree.  It  has  come  to  pass  in  this  day 
that  the  Lord  has  given  them  rest  from  their  sorrow,  and 
from  their  fear,  and  from  their  hard  bondage  ;  while  those 
who  held  them  captive  are  themselves  captured,  and  all  their 
pomp  and  power  have  become  a  burning  and  a  desolation 
forever. 


598  PEACE:    HER   GIFTS   AND  DEMANDS. 

"The  blood  that  they  have  shed  could  hide  no  longer 
In  the  blood-slaken  soil,  but  cried  to  Heaven. 
Their  cruelties  and  wrongs  against  the  poor 
Have  quickened  into  swarms  of  venomous  snakes, 
And  hissed  through  all  the  earth,  till  o'er  the  earth, 
That  ceases  now  from  hissings  and  from  groans, 
Rises  the  song,  —  How  are  the  mighty  fallen  ! 
And  by  the  peasant's  hand.     Low  lie  the  proud, 
And  smitten  with  the  weapons  of  the  poor,  — 
The  blacksmith's  hammer,  and  the  woodman's  ax. 
Their  tale  is  told ;  and  for  that  they  were  rich, 
And  robbed  the  poor ;  and  for  that  they  were  strong, 
And  scourged  the  weak ;  and  for  that  they  made  laws, 
Which  turned  the  sweat  of  labor's  brow  to  blood,  — 
For  these,  their  sins,  the  nations  cast  them  out; 
The  dunghills  are  their  death-beds,  and  the  stench 
From  their  uncovered  carrion,  steaming  wide, 
Turns  in  the  nostrils  of  enfranchised  man 
To  a  sweet  savor.     These  things  come  to  pass 
From  small  beginnings,  because  God  is  just." 

1.  These  chains  broken,  the  next  step  is  to  recognize  the 
slave  as  a  man  outwardly.  This  was  done  by  putting  the 
rifle  in  his  grasp.  True,  a  soldier  is  largely  a  machine,  but 
he  is  a  human  machine.  We  use  horses  for  riders,  not  for 
fighters.  The  ancients  employed  elephants,  moderns  con- 
fine themselves  to  men.  Their  valor,  obedience,  and  skill 
have  tested  this  quality  of  their  manhood. 

The  outer  line  is  carried.  The  inner  is  yet  to  be  won. 
The  country  has  been  compelled  to  recognize  the  physical 
manhood  and  brotherhood ;  it  must  now  their  spiritual. 

In  this  duty,  as  in  the  first,  much  is  to  be  done  here.  It 
was  almost  as  great  a  deed  to  organize  a  colored  regiment  in 
Boston  as  it  was  in  Richmond.  Governor  Banks  vetoed  the 
whole  Revised  Statutes,  a  volume  of  a  thousand  pages, 
because  it  struck  the  word  "  white  "  from  the  militia  law. 
Had  he  been  her  Governor,  Massachusetts  had  not  led  the 
column  in  this  onward  movement.  Governor  Andrew  faced 


THE   END    OF   THE    WAR.  599 

a  frowning-  and  a  sneering-  city  when  he  called  his  neighbors 
to  arms.  The  President  did  not  dare  to  march  them  through 
New  York.  They  would  have  met  a  worse  fate  than  did 
the  Sixth  in  Baltimore.  We  hated  and  despised  them  as 
much  as  we  did  Davis  and  his  myrmidons.  We  have 
partially,  and  but  partially,  overcome  that  feeling. 

This  chain  must  be  dissolved  from  their  necks  and  from 
ours.  On  its  various  links  I  shall  not  erilarg-e.  They  are 
evident  to  every  man's  consciousness.  The  right  of  suf- 
frage may  be  won  at  the  South  only  at  great  expense  of 
time  and  toil,  and  possibly  of  blood.  Were  there  more 
blacks  than  whites  in  this  State,  and  you  whites  held  the 
whole  power  in  your  hands,  would  you  admit  them  to  its 
privileges  without  a  struggle  ?  No  party  holding  such 
power  ever  yet  abandoned  it  gratuitously.  There  are  more 
blacks  than  whites  in  Mississippi  and  South  Carolina,  if  not 
in  the  other  States.  The  present  Governor  of  Louisiana 
declares  that  to  give  him  the  ballot  gives  him  the  country. 
But  yesterday's  paper  reports  him  as  saying  to  his  white 
hearers,  "  If  after  having  taken  this  country  from  the  red 
man,  and  holding  it  for  more  than  a  century  you  have  be- 
come so  charitable  as  to  give  it  to  the  black  man,  I  can  only 
submit  and  bow  to  .the  will  of  the  people."  The  people  he 
understands  to  be  not  the  majority  of 'its  citizens,  but  its 
former  voters,  four  fifths  of  whom  were  and  are  rank  rebels. 
They  must  deprive  their  loyal  fellow-citizens  of  equal  rights, 
or  the  State  goes  into  the  hands  of  the  man  of  color.  It  is 
something  of  an  advance  for  him  to  call  him  man';  something 
to  say  the  people  may,  if  they  will,  give  the  State  into  his 
hands.  The  white  people  will  not  grant  this,  but  God  will. 
They  may  shrink  from  such  a  complete  overturn  in  their 
society,  but  it  is  inevitable.  The  South  must  admit  the 
black,  not  to  the  supremacy,  but  to  equality.  Their  blood 
must  mingle  as  freely  in  the  channels  of  social  unity  as  it 


GOO  PEACE:    HER   GIFTS   AND   DEMANDS. 

has  on  the  fields  of  carnage.  They  are  at  antagonism  to- 
day. Some  event  may  arise,  will  arise,  that  will  force  them 
into  an  indissoluble  unity. 

2.  This  future  in  the  State  is  none  the  less  the  future  of 
the  Church,  and  the  duty  of  peace  is  to  insure  this  future.  It 
is  all  comprised  in  one  text.  There  is  neither  Greek  nor  Jew, 
male  nor  female,  barbarian,  Scythian,  bond  nor  free,  but  Christ 
is  all  and  in  all.  Its  workings  everybody  feels,  but  few  are 
willing  to  acknowledge,  fewer  are  willing  to  obey.  That  a 
church  can  stand  permanently  on  any  other  foundation  is  as 
impossible  as  it  is  for  God  to  lie.  That  brethren  in  Christ  are 
to  be  set  apart  because  of  their  color  from  other  brethren  ;  that 
the  ministers  of  Jesus  Christ  are  to  be  forbidden  from  serving 
in  pulpits,  to  which  their  talents  summon  them,  because  of 
their  complexion ;  not  even  because  of  this,  but  because  they 
happen  to  have  a  small  portion  of  descent  from  one  of  God's 
continents  and  peoples,  is  a  scandal  and  offence,  a  stench  in 
the  nostrils  of  the  Almighty.  Not  their  skin,  but  our  pride, 
is  rank,  and  smells  to  heaven.  Nay,  more,  "  it  hath  the 
primeval,  eldest  curse  upon  it,  a  brother's  murder."  For 
he  that  hateth  his  brother  is  a  murderer  ;  and  we  all  hate 
our  brethren  of  this  blood  when  we  seek  thus  their  segrega- 
tion and  degradation.  The  church  of  the  South,  the  church 
of  the  North,  must  be  reconstructed  on  this  basis.  We  talk 
of  reconstruction  in  the  State,  and  negro  suffrage.  There 
must  be  equal  reconstruction  in  the  Church. 

To  this  work  dedicate  yourself.  Ten  years  only  are  want- 
ing to  complete  the  first  century  of  our  national  history. 
What  a  century  has  it  been.  How  grand  in  promises.  How 
far  grander  in  fulfillment.  Dr.  Styles,  of  Yale  College,  in  a 
Thanksgiving  sermon,  preached  before  the  Legislature  of  Con- 
necticut, May  8,  1783,  with  the  title,  "  The  United  States 
raised  to  Glory  and  Honor,"  is  lavish  of  his  prophecies  on 
the  future  of  America.  Any  but  an  American  reading  his 


THE   END    OF   THE   WAR.  601 

words  would  have  called  them  the  ravings  of  fanaticism.  But 
they  are  more  than  fulfilled.  His  grandest  dreams  are  trivial 
by  the  side  of  the  realities  of  history.  Our  last  incubus  is 
cast  off,  cut  away  from  us  by  the  sharp  knife  of  the  Divine 
Surgeon,  with  great  loss  of  blood,  and  almost  with  loss  of 
national  life.  Yet  we  survive,  and  ere  this  century  of  our 
Lord  concludes  its  course  such  a  progress  is  to  be  witnessed 
materially  and  spiritually  as  we  never  yet  imagined. 

Europe,  Asia,  and  probably  Africa,  will  pour  forth  their 
millions  over  the  fat  earth  of  the  West  and  South;  the  mines 
will  cast  their  inexhaustable  treasures  into  the  national  lap. 
The  negro  will  rise  to  posts  of  honor  and  authority  in  all  the 
land,  will  sit  in  Congress,  will  rule  as  governor  where  till 
yesterday  he  toiled  as  a  slave,  will  be  settled  as  pastors  in 
the  highest  pulpits,  will  be  partners  in  our  largest  houses, 
guests  in  our  most  aristocratic  parlors,  residents  in  our 
richest  palaces,  and  men  shall  smile  at  the  idea  of  distinc- 
tion of  color,  as  they  now  do  at  the  divinity  of  slavery. 
The  grace  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  shall  renew  the  land  in 
holiness  and  love.  The  Churches  will  melt  into  harmonious 
oneness,  each  esteeming  the  others  better  than  itself.  Law 
will  everywhere  forbid  the  sale  of  intoxicating  drinks  as  a 
beverage,  will  give  universal  education  and  universal  pro- 
tection. 

Thus  shall  the  regeneration  of  all  the  lands  be  perfected. 
The  Church  shall  rise  to  her  true  hights  of  divine  brother- 
hood, the  State  and  society  shall  conform  to  her  in  all  their 
lower  but  powerful  activities.  The  inward  holiness  shall 
be  wrought  into  outward  virtue.  The  Sabbath  work  shall 
crown  with  its  ineffable  glory  the  humbler  labors  of  pre- 
ceding generations.  The  earth  shall  rest  in  gladness  and 
laugh  in  harvests.  The  industry  of  man  shall  find  full  re- 
wards. The  unity  and  married  calm  of  States  shall  be  per- 
fect and  perpetual.  The  people  of  God  shall  be  one  people, 


602  PEACE:   HER   GIFTS   AND   DEMANDS. 

none  biting  and  devouring  each  other,  but  all  moving-  like  a 
mighty  army  of  many  battalions  and  many  commanders, 
under  the  Captain  of  our  salvation,  to  the  bloodless  victory 
of  the  human  race  and  the  consummation  of  a  perfect 
eternity. 

"  Then  comes  the  statelier  Eden  back  to  man; 
Then  reign  the  world's  great  bridals,  chaste  and  calm ; 
Then  springs  the  crowning  race  of  humankind,  — 
May  these  things  be." 


AMEKICA'S  PAST  AND   FUTURE/ 


"  TO-MORROW  SHALL  BE  AS  THIS  DAT,  AND  MUCH  MORE  ABUNDANT."  — 
Isaiah  Ivi.  12. 


OW  many  weary  years  contribute  to  the  triumph 
of  this  hour.  Standing  on  this  summit,  behold- 
ing the  glory  that  is  breaking  forth  upon  all  our 
land,  feeling  the  joy  that  pervades  every  breast, 
we  can  hardly  fail  to  look  back  upon  the  steps  that  slowly 
led,  through  indifference,  hostility,  storms  of  war,  and  streams 
of  blood,  to  these  Delectable  Mountains.  One  who  hung 
delighted  over  the  peaceful  Paradise,  where  Adam  and  Eve 
in  their  fresh-created  perfection  walked  in  a  garden  of  calm 
and  fragrance,  could  not  refrain  from  vivifying  the  scene 
by  contrasting  it  with  the  previous  elemental  war,  the  dark- 
ness and  confusion  of  chaos,  creatures  fierce  and  gross  of 
nature,  that  filled  the  mighty  carboniferous  forests  with 
their  roar,  the  whole  abhorent,  unelevating  scene  :  — 

*  A  sermon  preached  at  Medford,  Massachusetts,  on  Thanksgiving 
Day,  November  26,  18G8,  on  the  election  of  Ulysses  S.  Grant  to  the 
Presidency  of  the  United  States. 

(603) 


604  AMERICA'S   PAST   AND   FUTUKE. 

"  Wrapt  in  impervious  mists,  which  ever  steamed 
Up  from  its  boiling  oceans,  without  form 
And  void,  it  rolled  around  the  sun,  which  cast 
Strange  lurid  lights  on  the  revolving  mass, 
But  pierced  not  to  the  solid  globe  beneath : 
Such  vast  eruption  of  internal  fires 
Had  mingled  sea  and  land. 


Earth  to  its  center  shook ;    and  what  were  seas 
Unsounded,  were  of  half  their  waters  drained ; 
And  what  were  wildernesses,  ocean-beds ; 
And  mountain  ranges,  from  beneath  upheaved, 
Clave  with  their  granite  peaks  primeval  plains, 
And  rose  sublime  above  the  water  floods ; 
Floods  overflowed  themselves  with  seas  of  mist, 
Which  swathed  in  darkness  all  terrestrial  things,  — 
A  world  unfurnished,  empty,  void,  and  vast." 

Out  of  this  wreck  of  matter  came  the  perfection  of  Eden, 
and  the  blessedness  of  the  holy  parents  of  our  race.  As 
the  angels  beheld  the  darkness  and  destruction,  how  could 
they  anticipate  the  coming  light  and  life  ?  Only  the  con- 
sciousness of  an  indwelling  and  overruling  God  of  infinite 
right,  and  love,  and  power,  gave  them  the  desired  assurance. 
Resting  calmly  in^  that  knowledge,  they  beheld  the  prevail- 
ing darkness,  the  baleful  government  of  the  Prince  of  the 
Power  of  the  Air,  the  mighty  conflict,  the  ever  increasing 
signs  of  the  progress  of  the  kingdom  of  God,  the  subjuga- 
tion of  one  foe  after  another,  of  fire  and  fog,  of  savagest 
beast,  huge,  amorphous,  with  many  a  scaly  fold,  voluminous 
and  vast,  whose  presence,  whether  as  lizard,  mammoth,  or 
winged  and  web-footed  monsters,  would  have  made  the 
earth  uninhabitable  to  man.  They  saw  the  conflict  increase 
in  fierceness  as  it  began  to  consummate  itself  in  the  final 
victory ;  the  death-ocean  of  ice  from  pole  to  pole  being  the 
last,  and,  to  other  eyes  than  those  of  faith,  the  complete 
annihilation  of  all  life  positive  and  possible.  But  in  faith 
they  still  looked  and  labored.  Conspiring  with  their  Creator, 


ELECTION  OF  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT.       605 

they  aided  in  the  resurrection  of  the  earth  from  this  sepul- 
cher  of  being-,  and  again  beheld  it  glowing  in  more  beautiful 
and  more  abundant  life  on  the  Paradisaic  morn  of  the  human 
creation  and  their  Edenic  home  . 

I.  So  we  can  note  the  mighty  war  of  spiritual,  and  even 
of  material  elements,  that  has  attended  this  new  creation  of 
our  land  and  people  in  the  truth  and  love  of  God.  We  can 
look  back  over  centuries,  and  behold  the  beginnings  of  that 
iniquity  whose  overthrow  this  victory  completes.  Nay, 
centuries  measure  not  its  horrid  life.  From  the  first  sin, 
this  principle  has  possessed  the  hearts  of  men  ;  from  the 
first  sinner,  it  has  found  foothold  in  human  society.  "  Thou 
shalt  rule  over  her/'  was  the  estate  into  which  one  half  of 
the  race  was  plunged  by  the  first  transgressor.  "  Thou 
shalt  rule  over  him,"  the  first  declaration  made  to  Cain  con- 
cerning Abel,  cast  a  large  portion  of  the  other  half  into  the 
same  chains.  The  husband  held  his  wife  as  property,  and 
beat,  petted,  or  sold  her,  as  his  passions  prompted.  The 
father  owned  his  children,  the  eldest  son  his  brothers.  In 
fact,  the  law  of  sin  was  a  law  of  bondage.  Slavery  was 
the  first-born  of  Satan  and  the  fallen  pair  ;  slavery  of  mind, 
and  heart,  and  body.  It  is  the  favorite  term  of  Scripture 
to  express  the  relation  of  the  lost  soul  to  its  lost  master. 

This  iniquity  developed  rapidly,  and  prevailed  like  the 
flood  over  all  the  earth.  Whole  nations  were  made  slaves 
in  an  hour  ;  one  mighty  overthrow  of  its  protecting  army 
by  an  invading  host  reduced  every  person  in  the  realm  to 
property.  Cities  were  thus  changed  from  liberty  to  slavery 
in  a  moment ;  states  were  transformed  in  a  day.  All  Israel 
went  into  captivity  after  one  battle.  All  Egypt  was  re- 
duced to  vassalage  by  one  conquering  hour  of  Persian,  Gre- 
cian, or  Roman  arms.  India's  multitudinous  millions  fell 
thus  beneath  the  victorious  stroke  of  a  foreign  general.  All 
Northern  Europe  became  the  slaves  of  Ca?sar. 

(i  He  hath  brought  many  captives  home  to  Rome," 


606  AMERICA'S   PAST   AND   FUTURE. 

is  the  praise  for  him  that  Shakspeare  naturally  puts  in  the 
lips  of  Antony. 

Whatever  mitigation  this  law  might  receive  through  the 
clemency  of  its  executors,. or  the  difficulty  in  its  execution, 
it  was  still  the  law  of  society,  and,  as  a  whole,  faithful- 
ly adhered  to  through  vast  ages  of  degraded  humanity. 
Athens,  in  the  hight  of  its  power,  had  twenty  slaves  to  one 
freeman  in  its  population  —  slaves  of  the  same  blood,  speech, 
and  nationality  as  their  masters.  Rome  had  an  equal  pro- 
portion in  her  own  walls,  and  far  greater  in  her  Italian  do- 
main. The  whole  world  was  one  vast  plantation,  where 
slaves  toiled  and  suffered  without  recompense  or  hope.  Only 
Judea,  in  the  time  of  Christ,  had  become  a  free  state.  It 
stood  alone  among  kingdoms,  recognizing  in  its  laws  no 
property  in  man. 

It  is  an  answer  alike  to  all  professed  religious  progress- 
ives, and  to  all  contemners  of  Jewish  Christianity,  that  this 
State  stood  solitary  in  its  doctrine  of  the  liberty  of  all  men. 
Why  had  not  Grecian  culture  and  philosophy,  of  which  we 
so  loudly  prate,  effected  a  like  amelioration  for  that  beautiful 
clime  ?  Pericles  had  ruled,  Phidias  carved,  Plato  written, 
Demosthenes  spoken,  Socrates  talked,  Homer  sung,  and 
the  men  of  Marathon  and  Thermopylae  had  fought ;  yet 
Greece  was  still  a  state  of  slaves.  India,  too,  the  favorite 
haunt  of  modern  skepticism,  where  it  is  fancied  the  first 
rising  of  modern  thought  and  faith  can  be  clearly  seen ; 
whose  Buddha  and  Brahma  it  is  pretended  are  the  sources 
of  all  religious  truth  —  where  was  India  in  its  humanitarian 
development  when  Christian  Judea  acknowledged  every 
man  free  and  equal,  and  was  practicing  that  "  declaration 
of  independence"  which  we  have  yet  failed  to  fully  receive  ? 
India  was  the  greatest  slaveholding  state  in  the  world.  A 
few  of  a  higher  caste  held  hundreds  of  millions  of  their 
kindred  in  chains  —  hold  them  to  this  day  in  more  than 
adamantine  fetters  ;  for  these  can  be  broken  ;  no  power  can 


ELECTION  OF  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT.       607 

yet  dissolve,  only  One  can  ever  dissolve,  these  bonds  of 
caste  —  and  that  is  the  power  of  Christ  Crucified;  to  the 
formalist  and  unprogressive  Jew  a  stumbling-block  ;  to  the 
haughty-minded  Greek,  foolishness ;  but  to  them  that  believe, 
both  Jews  and  Greeks,  Christ  the  Power  of  God  and  the 
Wisdom  of  God. 

This  liberty  the  chosen  nation  lost  by  rejecting  its  sole 
Author,  and  on  its  captivity,  the  human  race  was  plunged 
again  into  universal  slavery.  Out  of  this  deluge  that  over- 
whelmed mankind  in  a  worse  than  material  destruction, 
society  slowly  emerged  through  the  diifusion  and  energy  of 
Christianity.  The  Church  broke  these  bonds.  She  abolished 
slavery  in  Italy  and  the  Orient.  She  tamed  down  its  horrors 
in  Northern  Europe,  and  swept  it  away  in  gradual  centuries 
from  every  European  Christian  country.  Had  she  been 
more  faithful,  her  victories  would  have  been  earlier  and 
greater ;  and  long  since  she  would  have  redeemed  the  world 
to  Christ  and  Liberty. 

As  it  is,  her  work  has  been  great  and  her  progress  steady. 
Rome  broke  the  chains  from  the  body  if  she  bound  them  on 
the  soul.  Athens  became  Christian  and  free.  Egypt,  under 
her  bishops  and  other  clergy,  emerged  from  her  idolatry 
and  her  serfdom.  England  broke  the  yoke  from  our  Saxon 
fathers,  and  stopped  the  slave  trade  between  Ireland  and 
England,  that  flourished  even  after  the  invasion  of  William 
and  the  erection  of  Victoria's  throne.  Kingsley,  in  his 
Hereward,  or  the  "  Last  of  the  English,"  describes  this 
traffic  in  language  not  unsuited  to  the  Charleston  and  Rich- 
mond of  our  own  generation.* 

This  emancipation  was  not  completed  till  our  own  day  ; 
and  the  present  Emperor  of  the  Russias  has  the  honor  of 
closing  the  list  of  European  sovereigns  who  have  released 
from  bondage  European  peoples.  None  of  that  branch  of 
mankind  are  now  held  in  servitude,  save  such  as  Turkey 
binds,  or  as  on  our  own  continent,  in  Brazil  and  Cuba,  have 
*  See  Note  XXI. 


608  AMERICA'S   PAST   AND   FUTURE. 

their  blood  tinted  with  the  hues  of  a  fraternal  race,  soon  to 
disappear  from  these  dominions. 

II.  But  while  slavery  was  thus  dying  at  the  bidding  of 
Christianity,  —  and  at  her  bidding  only,  —  it  still  existed  in 
regiops  unvisited  by  her  rays,  and  intruded  its  baleful  pres- 
ence into  lands  that  had  been  settled  exclusively  in  her 
interests.  Driven  from  Europe,  it  took  refuge  in  Africa. 
Denied  sovereignty  of  men  of  white  complexion,  it  infamously 
suggested  to  the  carnal  heart  that  abolitionism  depended  on 
color,  not  on  humanity  :  that  it  was  wrong  —  of  course  it 
was,  now  that  it  could  no  longer  be  sustained  —  to  enslave 
white  people,  Caucasians,  the  ruling  race,  the  divinely  ap- 
pointed head  of  creation  ;  but  that  fact  not  only  permits,  it 
requires,  the  enslavement  of  the  antipodal  race.  The  white 
skin  is  emancipated  because  it  is  white.  That  logic  neces- 
sitates the  enslavement  of  the  black  skin.  So  the  devil  feeds 
our  too  susceptible  hearts  with  the  Satanism  of  caste,  and 
sweeps  the  whole  Christian  Church  —  at  least  in  America — 
into  bondage  to  this  opinion.  He  makes  us  look  on  our 
brother  with  loathing.  He  makes  us  separate  him  from 
ourselves  as  an  abhorred  thing.  He  makes  us  exclude  him 
from  our  table,  our  pulpit,  our  pew,  our  shop,  our  store,  our 
homes,  our  hearts.  He  diffuses  such  a  murky  mist  of  preju- 
dice over  society,  that  we  inhale  its  miasm  as  our  constant 
atmosphere,  and  under  its  cloud  work  out  his  plans  for  the 
perpetuation  of  his  power  over  us  and  our  victims  as  long 
as  he  can  keep  us  under  his  sinful  influence.  Expelled  from 
the  white  class,  this  iniquity  begs  permission  to  invade  the 
black  and  ruin  it.  Arid  so  a  legion  of  evil  spirits  rush  upon 
the  hapless  victim,  and  drive  him  headlong  into  the  abyss 
of  shame  and  agony.  For  three  hundred  and  fifty  years 
has  this  abomination  flourished.  From  the  first  modern 
African  slave-maker,  stealer,  and  trader,  Prince  Henry  of 
Portugal,  the  first  navigator  of  Western  Africa,  and  the  sea- 
father  of  Vasco  de  Gama  and  Columbus,  even  until  now,  has 


ELECTION  OF  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT.       609 

the  Afric  shore  echoed  with  the  screams  of  these  victims, 
the  ocean  been  incarnadined  with  their  blood.  Before  Amer- 
ica was  discovered,  from  six  to  eight  hundred  Africans  were 
annually  imported  into  Portugal.  The  Moors  were  the  chief 
traders,  and  their  horses  their  chief  coin.  They  bought  ten 
to  eighteen  men  for  a  Barbary  steed. 

Columbus  deserved  his  end  for  his  treatment  of  the  In- 
dians, who  received  him  as  a  god,  and  to  whom  he  became 
a  demon.     He  stole  them  by  the  thousand,  and  sold  them 
in  Spanish  ports.     He  offered  to  supply  four  thousand  an- 
nually to  Ferdinand  and  Isabella,  and  estimated  the  revenue 
to  the  crown,  from  their  sale,  at  fifty  thousand  dollars  per 
annum.     He  was  the  father  of  all  the  Indian  barbarities  that 
yet  curse  our  government,  and  make  our  line  of  advance  to 
the  Pacific  Sea  a  red  line  of  the  red  man's  blood.      But  Co- 
lumbus did  not  introduce  the  negro  to  save  the  Indian  ;  nor 
did  Las  Casas,  the  emancipator  of  the  Indian,  as  is  too  fre- 
quently charged.    He  accepted  him  to  his  subsequent  regret, 
but  he  did  not  first'  import  him.     The  African  was  brought 
over  by  the  earliest  traders  as  an  item  of  commerce,  when 
as  yet  Indian  slavery  was  flourishing,  and  bishops,  priests, 
kings,   governors,   and   colonists    alike   flourished   upon    it. 
He  was  a  captive  here  as  soon  as   his  American  brother. 
He  has  outlived  him  as   a   slave,  he  may  also   as   a  free- 
man. 

From  that  hour  to  this  you  see  the  strides  of  this  giant 
iniquity.  How  it  overrun  all  the  India  Islands,  the  neigh- 
boring shores  north  and  south,  crept  down  to  Brazil  and  up 
to  Mexico,  crossed  over  to  the  Pacific,  and  swept  the  coast 
from  its  southern  to  its  northern  belt  of  ice  and  so-called 
civilization ;  how  it  struck  at  the  Christian  colonies  of  France 
and  England,  and  whatever  their  diversities  and  hostilities 
of  creed,  compelled  them  alike  into  bondage  to  this  crime. 
The  Puritans,  Churchmen,  Papists,  and  Quakers,  the  sons 
of  the  martyrs  of  Holland  and  France,  Huguenots  and  Sy- 
39 


610  AMERICA'S   PAST   AND   FUTURE. 

nodists  of  Dort,  the  followers  of  Cromwell  and  of  Charles, 
all  creeds,  classes,  tongues  and  tribes,  plunged  into  this 
cruelty  and  crime.  And  to  this  day,  those  who  bear  this 
mixed  religion  and  national  blood  in  their  veins  are  the  bit- 
terest foes  in  the  world  of  the  negro  and  of  emancipation. 
They  despise  him  in  all  the  North,  they  hate  his  liberation 
in  all  the  South.  Of  one  blood  are  we  and  our  rebellious 
brethren,  in  our  near  origin,  and  in  our  feelings  toward  our 
long-enslaved  kindred,  the  oldest  of  our  race  from  the  oldest 
of  our  continents. 

III.  The  controversy  God  has  waged  with  us  because  o'f 
this  sin  we  all  know  by  heart,  especially  its  last  and  blood- 
iest chapters.  We  know  how  our  Constitution  admitted 
seemingly,  and  in  the  intent  of  its  founders,  this  iniquity, 
though  it  also  enunciated  principles  that  made  it  actually 
unconstitutional.  We  all  know  how  Washington  violated 
these  fundamental  principles  in  signing  the  first  fugitive 
slave  bill ;  how  Monroe  and  Congress  again  violated  them 
in  approving  of  the  extension  of  slavery  into  free  territory 
beyond  the  Mississippi ;  how  the  Church  and  the  State 
descended  together  to  the  pit  of  destruction,  and  sank  so 
low  that  the  Church  refused  to  listen  to  the  testimony  of  one 
of  its  sisters  if  she  had  been  ravished  of  her  virtue  by  her 
owner,  provided  he  was  also  a  member  of  the  same  church; 
while  separate  States  inflicted  upon  these  victims  every  con- 
ceivable and  inconceivable  barbarity,  and  the  nation  forbid 
any  one  from  harboring  those  who  might  escape  from  this 
den  of  lions,  and  even  prohibited  his  refusing  to  assist  in 
their  recapture  under  penalty  of  heavy  fines  and  imprison- 
ment. 

Thus  Church  and  State  were  married  by  and  to  the  Devil. 
Thus  an  offspring  burst  forth  in  all  the  land  and  in  every 
household  of  bitter  contempt  and  malice  toward  God's 
children  and  our  own  brethren ;  an  offspring  of  pride,  and 
passion,  and  avarice  ;  an  offspring  that  made  the  minister  of 


ELECTION  OF  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT.       611 

Christ  the  minister  of  Satan ;  that  erected  the  auction-block 
for  human  souls  under  the  shadow  of  Christian  churches  ; 
that  made  our  flag  protect  cargoes  of  chained  citizens  on  the 
long  ocean  pathway  from  the  Chesapeake  to  the  Rio  Grande ; 
that  filled  thousands  of  pulpits  with  prayers  and  preachings, 
to  which  God  responded,  "  My  soul  hateth ; "  that  changed  our 
hearts  to  stone  before  the  beseeching  cries  of  our  own  brothers 
and  sisters ;  that  wrought  evil  after  evil  by  the  arm  of  the 
State  and  the  sinful  blessing  of  the  Church,  until  the  line 
forbidding  slavery  in  millions  of  miles  of  territory  was  blotted 
out ;  the  rights  of  the  man  of  color,  whatever  the  dimness 
of  his  tint,  declared  invalid  before  any  national  court ;  the 
right  to  prevent  his  introduction  as  a  slave  into  any  free 
State  taken  away ;  and  slavery  had  become,  in  the  language 
of  its  most  eminent  advocate,  "the  corner-stone  of  the  Con- 
stitution." 

Against  this  prevalence  of  iniquity  God  raised  up  enemies, 
in  the  Church  and  out  of  it,  in  the  nation  and  abroad ;  in  the 
principle  with  which  he  fired  our  hearts,  and  the  scourges 
with  which  he  compelled  our  sins  to  chastise  us ;  everywhere 
the  forces  of  the  Almighty  were  aroused  and  organized  to 
confront  this  gigantic  sin.  How  His  flag  sunk  and  rose  in 
the  varying  conflict.  How  the  hearts  of  His  followers  failed 
them  for  fear,  and  inflamed  them  with  hope,  as  alternate 
failure  and  success  attended  their  efforts  and  their  prayers. 
Especially  did  fear  possess  them  as  they  saw  the  end  of  all 
their  preliminary  battles  ;  as  clear  and  more  clear  the  deter- 
mination of  the  slaveholder  "  to  fight  it  out  on  this  line  " 
became  evident,  and  confidence  in  the  "willingness  of  his  foe 
to  meet  him  on  the  bloody  field  failed  to  be  developed  with 
equal  certainty.  Many  were  the  attempts  made,  not  by  the 
slavocrat,  but  by  his  antagonists,  to  avoid  this  issue.  We 
offered  to  extend  the  Missouri  line  to  the  Pacific  coast.  We 
offered  to  introduce  an  amendment  into  the  Constitution  for- 
bidding the  National  Government  from  ever  emancipating  a 


612  AMERICA'S   PAST   AND   FUTURE. 

slave.  We  kissed  their  hands  arid  feet  in  fear  of  the  threat 
of  disunion  which  they  constantly  flourished  over  us.  Many 
went  yet  further,  and  advocated  the  dismissal  of  the  slave- 
holding  section.  Even  some  of  our  wisest  leaders  fell  into 
this  snare.  Phillips  and  Garrison,  Chase  and  Greeley,  ad- 
vised this  course.  They  did  not  believe  the  people  would 
endure  the  test  to  which  the  Union  would  compel  them. 
They  feared  slavery  would  subdue  the  North,  rather  than 
the  North  abolish  slavery.  They  dreamed  that,  cut  off  from 
the  North,  the  slave  would  soon  compel  his  master  to  eman- 
cipation. But  the  wisdom  of  God  is  wiser  than  men.  He 
allowed  His  enemies  to  most  daringly  defy  our  national  prin- 
ciples, organization,  and  even  existence.  He  strengthened 
His  friends  to  meet  defiance  with  defiance,  treason  with 
faithfulness,  hatred  of  the  country  and  its  principles  with  in- 
creasing flame  of  devotion  to  every  vital  national  idea.  They 
sought  to  extirpate  its  love  of  liberty.  He  excited  it  by 
innumerable  harangues.  They  denounced  the  Union.  He 
fed  the  sacred  flame  of  devotion  to  this  outward  and  essen- 
tial body  of  the  national  soul.  So,  when  the  night  of  stag- 
gering weakness  and  seeming  dissolution  came ;  when  men's 
hearts  were  everywhere  failing  themselves  with  fear,  and 
with  a  looking  for  the  things  that  were  about  to  come  upon 
the  earth;  when  the  head  of  the  nation  threw  up  his  imbecile 
hands  in  confessed  powerlessness,  and  allowed  his  chiefs  of 
State  to  rob  his  treasury  and  arsenals,  to  scatter  his  petty 
navy  and  pettier  army,  while  he,  like  a  sick  girl,  cried  "  No 
coercion,"  "  I  shall  be  the  last  President  of  the  United 
States,"  as  he  certainly  will  be  the  least ;  when  the  Pres- 
ident elect  had  to  steal  into  his  capital  in  disguise,  and 
foreign  observers  were  writing  home,  "  The  Constitution  of 
the  United  States  can  be  bought  on  Broadway  for  three 
cents,  and  that  is  a  higher  price  than  the  people  set  upon 
it  "  —  even  then  the  slowly-growing  opposition  was  solidify- 
ing itself  for  the  coming  struggle,  and  at  the  first  word  of 


ELECTION  OF  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT.       613 

command  from  the  authoritative  source,  sprang  up  in  arms 
as  cheerfully,  as  enthusiastically,  as  multitudinously  as  the 
angels  leaped  to  the  call  of  their  Lord  for  the  overthrow  of 
the  rebellious  host,  and  the  unity  arid  liberty  of  the  Heavenly 

Kingdom. 

"  The  mighty  quadrate,  joined 
Of  union  irresistible,  moved  on 
In  silence,  the  bright  legions  to  the  sound 
Of  instrumental  harmony,  that  breathed 
Heroic  ardor,  to  adventurous  deeds 
Under  their  godlike  leaders,  in  the  cause 
Of  God  and  his  Messiah." 

IV.  That  struggle  gave  birth  to  our  coming  President. 
He  was  one  of  those  who  saw  and  felt  the  full  force  of  the 
conflict,  at  least  in  its  material  form.  He  measured  the 
greatness  of  the  war  before  a  soldier  had  been  summoned  to 
arms,  or  a  blow  had  been  struck  by  the  enemy.  In  that 
doleful  winter  of  our  weakness  he,  the  humble  merchant  of 
a  country  town,  was  carefully  studying  the  forces  of  the 
rebellion. '  His  minister  spent  an  evening  with  him  at  that 
time,  and  saw  him  as  he  rose  up  in  the  enthusiasm  of  his 
discourse,  and  stood  with  form  dilated,  filled  with  the  vast- 
ness  of  his  theme.  When  he  left,  he  said  to  his  wife,  "  Did 
you  notice  how  much  Mr.  Grant  resembled  Napoleon  ? " 
Little  did  his  guests  think  how  complete  that  resemblance 
was,  and  how  all  the  world,  before  three  years  elapsed, 
would  recognize  him  as  the  successor  to  this  soldier  in  the 
military  annals  of  the  century. 

His  wife  had  a  clearer  vision.  To  this  same  gentleman, 
expressing  on  the  morning  of  his  departure  hopes  that  her 
husband  would  return  in  safety,  she  replied,  "  I  hope  he  will 
return  major  general,  or  something  of  that  sort."  She  was 
probably  the  only  person  in  the  country  that  saw  this  capa- 
city or  entertained  these  expectations.  His  father  to  this 
day  seems  to  have  no  apprehension  of  him.  He  still  says, 
"  Ulysses  accomplishes  all  he  does  through  hard  work," 


614  AMERICA'S   PAST   AND   FUTURE. 

having  no  perception  of  that  genius  which  alone  makes  that 
hard  work  create  victory  out  of  defeat,  and  a  world  of  re- 
nown out  of  a  chaos  of  ruin. 

1.  Six  years  ago  no  man  was  more  unknown.  To-day  his 
deeds  are  written  broadest  of  all  our  soldiers'  on  the  pages 
of  our  history.  No  general  before  him  has  an  equal  record. 
He  has  made  the  fields  of  Trenton,  Yorktown,  Bunker  Hill, 
Buena  Vista,  and  Cherubusco  sink  into  insignificance  beside 
the  names  of  Shiloh,  Vicksburg,  Chattanooga,  and  Richmond. 
His  military  power  is  sure. 

But  greater  than  his  prowess  is  the  cause  he  served.  He 
saved  the  best  of  nations  ;  he  slew  the  worst  of  crimes. 
Through  his  gift  alone  was  the  Republic  of  America  pre- 
served unbroken,  preserved  at  all.  No  other  general  ap- 
peared that  seemed  equal  to  the  necessity.  Sherman's  gifts 
were  not  such  as  could  put  squadrons  in  the  field,  nor  con- 
duct tedious  and  perplexing  sieges.  Sheridan  could  hurl 
his  forces  like  storm-driven  waves  upon  the  line  of  his  foe, 
scattering  them  like  spray  ill  the  swiftness  and  mightiness 
of  his  blows.  Thomas  alone  revealed  powers  that  might 
have  won  for  him  the  chieftainship.  But  even  he  failed  to 
reveal  the  combination  of  organizing,  steadfast,  far-seeing, 
daring,  and  impetuous  qualities  that  tower  in  the  character 
of  Grant. 

He  has  kept  intact  our  vast  boundaries,  and  insured  their 
vaster  expansion.  He  has  changed  the  contempt  of  all 
nations  into  respect,  and  implanted  a  dread  of  our  prowess 
and  our  ideas  that  is  a  sure  precursor  of  a  fast-hastening 
change  in  all  their  states  conformable  to  our  triumphant 
principles.  He  has  insured  the  essential  extension  of 
America  over  the  world.  Already  the  United  States  of 
Europe  are  openly  advocated  in  congresses  from  all  her  peo- 
ples ;  and  that  more  distant  and  dubious  title,  the  United 
States  of  Asia,  looms  up  mistily  from  the  far  horizon.  Even 
the  United  States  of  Africa  will  be  born  in  due  time  into  the 


ELECTION  OF  ULYSSES  S.  GKANT.       615 

family  of  republics ;  while  the  United  States  of  America  shall 
encompass  the  whole  continent  in  her  oceanic  lines.  Thus 
from  this  victory  over  the  rebellion  will  arise  a  fraternity  of 
nations,  few  in  number,  divided  by  no  alienation  of  lan- 
guage, government,  or  faith  ;  ultimately  to  become  one  with 
each  other,  with  Christ,  with  God. 

To  this  consummation  the  man  just  elected  to  the  head- 
ship of  the  Republic  has  chiefly  contributed.  Joshua's  arm 
alone  could  batter  down  the  walls  of  Ai,  and  Gath,  and 
Askelon.  Moses,  the  Lincoln  Liberator,  must  give  way  to 
the  conquering  warrior.  David's  military  genius  alone 
enabled  Israel  to  complete  its  appointed  boundaries,  and 
send  its  banners  and  its  laws  from  the  Euphrates  to  the 
Nile.  So  the  mighty  foes  of  this  nation  —  mightier  than 
ever  before  arose  from  the  heart  of  any  State  for  its  over- 
throw, and  failed  in  their  undertaking  —  could  never  have 
been  suppressed  by  any  genius  save  one  that  instinctively 
grasped  the  whole  field  of  deadly  debate,  and  as  instinctive- 
ly discerned  the  path  to  the  mastery. 

This  ability  may  have  included  more  than  it  had  op- 
portunity for  exhibition.  Had  France  succeeded  in  Mexico, 
and  proceeded  thence  to  assail  the  Union,  his  acquaintance 
with  that  territory  might  have  been  called  into  requisition 
to  smite  this  new  foe  in  the  farther  South.  Had  England 
followed  out  the  instincts  of  all  her  ruling  classes,  and 
engaged  in  the  support  of  the  rebellion,  even  to  the  re- 
fastening  the  fetters  on  the  neck  of  the  slave,  his  military 
genius  would  have  reenacted  the  victory  of  Scott  on  the 
field  of  Lundy's  Lane,  and  the  triumph  of  Wolfe  on  the 
Plains  of  Abraham.  The  controversy  of  Nova  Scotia  would 
have  been  settled  by  its  absorption  into  our  nationality,  and 
the  ambition  of  Canada  been  more  than  gratified  by  becom- 
ing an  integer  in  the  Continental  Republic. 

His  administration  may  witness  this  Northern  and  South- 
ern extension  of  our  boundaries  by  the  arts  of  peace,  which, 


616  AMERICA'S   PAST   AND   FUTURE. 

had  France  and  England  dared  to  enter  our  field  of  civil 
debate,  might. have  been  speedily  accomplished  by  deeds 
of  war. 

2.  But  while  we  thus  linger  around  the  services  which 
our  General  and  President  have  rendered  to  our  nation  and 
to  all  nations,  and  behold  the  pleasant  visions  of  coming  con- 
sequences of  his  great  victories,  we  should  be  forgetful  of 
his  chief  victory  and  its  chief  duty  if  we  failed  to  dwell  upon 
the  grandest  results  of  his  arms.  Unlike  all  other  great 
generals,  his  military  fame  is  indissolubly  united  with  the 
emancipation  of  millions  of  slaves.  Alexander  drove  back 
the  Eastern  powers,  and  put  Europe  for  the  first  time  where 
England  and  Russia  keep  her  to-day,  on  the  neck  of  Asia. 
But  he  gave  no  people  their  liberty.  His  triumphs  were 
military  alone,  or  at  the  best  political.  Caesar,  undoubtedly 
the  first  of  warriors  in  the  ante-Christian  ages,  reduced  free 
nations  to  slavery,  and  added  vast  multitudes  of  bondmen 
to  the  already  glutted  man-market  of  Italy.  To  no  race  nor 
man  did  his  powers  bring  liberty.  He  even  put  the  dagger 
to  the  Roman  Republic,  and  was  the  acknowledged  founder 
of  an  imperial  dynasty  whose  name  is  yet  boastfully  as- 
sumed as  their  'own  by  a  ruling  house  of  Europe,  while  his 
spirit  animates  the  most  despotic  of  emperors. 

Of  every  later  captain  the  same  sad  fact  is  true.  Napo- 
leon reduced  liberated  France  to  bondage.  Wellington  tied 
the  English  and  European  nations  to  aristocratic  and  despotic 
institutions.  Only  Washington  and  Cromwell  made  their 
arms  deliver  their  peoples  ;  and  they  did  not  break  such 
yokes  or  bestow  such  liberty  as  it  was  given  to  our  General 
to  achieve.  His  genius  was  employed  not  to  enslave,  but 
to  emancipate  ;  not  to  beat  back  aggressive  tyrannies,  but  to 
uproot  them  ;  not  to  release  from  civil  bondage,  but  from 
human  ;  not  to  save  states,  but  men. 

This  puts  his  name  as  far  above  his  rivals  as  the  deeds  of 
humanity  surpass  those  of  mere  ability.  The  inventor  of  a 


ELECTION  OF  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT       617 

needle-guu  may  show  as  great  genius  as  the  inventor  of  the 
needle  in  the  sewing-machine.  But  the  latter  has  made  his 
talent  relieve  the  toil  and  enrich  the  gains  of  millions  of  the 
poor,  while  the  former  only  increases  the  mimber  of  the 
slain  in  the  field  of  battle.  The  mere  military  genius,  as 
such,  is  often  the  least  valuable  gift  of  God  to  man.  The 
poet  is  of  more  worth  ;  the  preacher  a  far  better  blessing ; 
the  inventor,  and  discoverer,  and  educator  are  his  superior. 
He  is  but  a  boxer  on  a  bigger  scale.  He  fights  with  others' 
fists,  as  John  Morrissey  gambles  with  others'  hands,  as 
every  master  works  through  his  subordinates.  He  masses 
force,  and  hurls  it  upon  opposing  force.  If  his  force  crushes 
its  contrary,  it  is  but  the  gift  of  a  thunderbolt,  an  earth- 
quake, a  trip-hammer.  For  what  is  his  genius  exerted  ? 
That  alone  decides  its  value.  Byron  writes  as  good  poetry 
as  Cowper;  perhaps  better.  But  which  serves  God  and  his 
generation  with  his  heaven-given  gifts  ?  Davis  had  as  great 
fitness  for  statesmanship  as  Lincoln.  Whose  talents  are  put 
to  divine  using  ?  It  is  the  end  they  serve  that  makes  their 
real  value. 

So  Grant's  genius  was  fortunately  devoted  to  the  highest 
ends.  His  military  skill,  like  Stephenson's  inventive  talent, 
like  Wesley's  poetic,  was  employed  by  God  for  the  best 
possible  service.  lie  struck  down  not  only  an  army,  but  an 
institution.  He  won  not  victory  merely,  but  liberty.  He 
rescued  not  imperiled  troops,  but  an  imprisoned  race.  What 
God  might  have  done  through  others  had  he  not  arisen  can- 
not be  told  ;  what  He  did  do  through  him  can  never  be  told. 
Every  father  then  in  chains  who  walks  to-day  a  freeman  ; 
who  meets  his  joyful  family  around  his  own  thanksgiving 
table  ;  every  such  mother  who  clasps  her  babe  the  closer  to 
her  breast,  as  she  feels  that  no  power  can  snatch  it  from 
her  arms  except  He  who  gave  it,  and  Ho  always  leaves  it 
on  her  heart,  whether  He  holds  it  here  or  in  heaven  ;  every 
child  of  these'  parents  playing  in  the  unconscious  gladness 


618  AMERICA'S   PAST   AND   FUTURE. 

of  childhood,  not  knowing  what  wonderful  brightness  lights 
up  his  path  that  never  illumined  their  childhood  —  these 
millions  owe  their  innumerable  millions  of  blessings  under 
God  to  his  military  ability.  Surely,  never  was  a  gift  divine 
more  divinely  honored. 

V.   What  means  this  election  ? 

The  past  is  past.  The  future  is  before  us.  No  man,  no 
nation  can  go  back.  We  must  advance.  The  London  po- 
liceman's word  in  a  thronged  thoroughfare  is  the  order  of 
the  Creator  to  mankind —  "  Move  on  !  "  What  is  the  path 
on  which  he  orders  us  to  march  ?  What  are  the  principles 
which  this  election  is  designed  by  him  to  settle  ? 

1.  It  ordains  order.  The  primal  element  of  all  progress 
is  peace.  Crystals  can  only  be  formed  in  still  media.  Even 
the  fiery  uprushings  of  the  volcano  make  no  gems  until  they 
sink  in  repose.  Grant's  election  assures  that  condition.  He 
has  met  the  enemy  on  its  last  organized  field.  He  has  put 
to  rout  the  assassins  as  he  did  the  soldiers.  The  ghosts 
of  rebel  fighters,  as  the  Ku  Klux  profess  to  be,  revisiting  the 
glimpses  of  the  moon  with  revolvers  in  their  skeleton  hands, 
and  murder  in  their  fleshless  hearts,  will  subside  again  into 
their  unquiet  graves.  Rest,  perturbed  spirit  of  slavery  and 
murder,  rest.  The  man  who  subdued  you  living,  will  sub- 
due your  dead.  Those  that  have  dared  to  assume  these 
grave  clothes  for  the  indulgence  of  their  own  diabolical 
malice,  must  cease  their  bloodthirstiness  or  join  their  dead 
comrades.  Through  all  the  South  shall  there  be  as  com- 
plete peace  and  liberty  as  throughout  the  North.  "  Charley," 
said  our  Presidentelect  to  one  of  his  friends,  "  Charley,  if  I 
am  President)  every  man  everywhere  shall  be  protected  in 
the  liberty  of  uttering  his  opinions." 

That  vow  will  be  kept.  Every  rebel  knows  that  it  will. 
He  has  seen  the  man  who  says  it  at  Fort  Donelson  and 
Shiloh,  at  Vicksburg  and  Chattanooga,  in  the  Wilderness 
and  at  Richmond  ;  an.d  he  knows  that  he  always  keeps  his 


ELECTION  OF  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT.       619 

word.  In  Kentucky,  he  made  peace  by  driving  out  the 
rebel  soldier;  he  will  again,  by  driving  out  the  rebel  assassin. 
In  Tennessee,  and  Mississippi,  and  Virginia  he  made  peace, 
sending  "  the  great  river  unvexed  to  the  sea,"  sweeping 
away  all  armed  hostility  from  Nashville  around  to  its  capital, 
driving  the  enemy's  cannon  from  the  Rapidan  to  Richmond, 
and  from  Richmond  into  our  own  victorious  lines.  They 
fear  his  arm.  They  will  crouch,  and  tremble,  and  obey.  As 
the  devil  and  his  angels  fled  and  fell  before  the  mighty 
Michael,  Prince  of  God,  so  will  this  new  revelation  of  the 
same  evil  spirit  submit  to  this  new  revelation  of  the  decree 
of  the  Almighty. 

It  is  a  glad  dawn  for  our  loyal  brethren. 

The  fugitive  loyalist,  black  and  white,  has  feared  the 
glance  of  a  passer-by,  as  if  it  were,  as  it  has  too  often  been, 
the  glare  of  a  murderer.  He  has  trembled  when  the  night 
closed  around  his  dwelling,  lest  the  ghostly  knock  should 
call  him  from  his  slumbers  to  the  sleep  of  death.  Never  were 
the  lamentations  of  Jerusalem's  prophet  over  the  afflictions 
of  his  land  more  painfully  fitted  to  any  people.  "  We  got 
our  bread,"  must  they  say,  "  with  the  peril  of  our  lives." 
"  They  hunt  our  steps,  that  we  cannot  go  into  our  streets." 
"  Our  persecutors  are  swifter  than  the  eagles  of  the  heavens ; 
they  pursued  us  upon  the  mountains,  they  laid  wait  for  us 
in  the  wilderness."  Most  sadly  identical,  also,  is  the  cause 
of  all  the  misery  of  Zion  and  the  South.  "  For  the  sins  of 
her  prophets  and  the  iniquities  of  her  priests  that  have  shed 
the  blood  of  the  just  in  the  midsf  of  her,  they  have  wandered 
as  blind  men  in  the  streets,  they  have  polluted  themselves 
with  blood,  so  that  men  could  not  touch  their  garments. 
The  Lord  hath  accomplished  his  fury  ;  he  hath  poured  his 
fierce  anger,  and  it  hath  kindled  a  fire  in  Zion,  and  it  hath 
devoured  the  foundations  thereof."  In  this  awful  condition 
of  promiscuous  massacre,  the  helpless  ones  have  turned 
despairing  eyes  to  a  hostile  President  and  a  powerless 


620  AMERICA'S   PAST   AND   FUTURE. 

Congress.  They  have  made  every  Christian  heart  exclaim 
with  the  Christian  poet,  over  like  horrible  barbarities  in- 
flicted by  the  Papal  fiends  on  their  Protestant  brethren  of 
Vaudois  :  — 

"  Avenge,  O,  Lord !  thy  slaughtered  saints,  whose  bones 
Lie  scattered  on  the  Alpine  mountains  cold." 

On  this  darkness  peace  breaks.  The  cabin  shall  be  sacred 
as  the  castle,  the  laborer  shall  toil  and  travel  unharmed. 
Complexion  shall  not  imperil  life,  but  shall  be  a  bond  of 
mutual  affection.  The  impartial  President  shall  fold  all  in 
his  protecting  arms,  and  the  South  shall  at  last  accept  in 
practice  the  motto  of  Massachusetts,  as  she  has  already 
adopted  her  principles.  Under  liberty  shall  she  enjoy  calm 
quiet  through  the  sword. 

2.  But  if  order  is  heaven's  first  law,  it  is  only  the  first. 
Something  must  be  done.  "Quiet,  to  quick  bosoms,  is  a 
hell."  Quiet  is  only  a  condition  for  life  to  work  in.  What 
is  the  life  that  is  to  work  in  this  condition  ? 

It  has  revealed  its  earliest  stages.  The  universality  of 
suffrage  and  the  equality  of  legal  and  civil  rights.  These 
steps  have  been  taken  in  the  South  in  form  ;  but  they  are 
not  yet  everywhere  successful  in  spirit.  They  have  not  been 
yet  taken  in  all  the  North  in  form,  though  they  are  largely 
successful  here  in  spirit.  In  both  regions  form  and  spirit 
must  unite.  The  South  must  everywhere  cease  to  forbid 
the  legitimate  voter  his  suffrage  ;  the  North  must  every- 
where cease  to  forbid  its  citizens  from  becoming  legal  voters. 
Georgia  and  Connecticut  to-day  are  practically  united. 
Both  exclude  law-abiding  and  patriotic  citizens  from  the 
ballot.  One  does  it  with  Colt's  revolvers,  the  other  with 
Colt's  workmen.  Ohio  is  as  wicked  as  Louisiana.  She  has 
sunken  from  a  hundred  thousand  majority  for  liberty  to  fifteen 
thousand,  because  she  refused  to  do  this  God-demanded  duty. 
She  will  go  into  bondage  to  the  enemy,  unless  she  is  de- 


ELECTION   OF   ULYSSES   S.  GRANT.  621 

livered  from  this  crime.  Universal  suffrage  must  be  enacted 
and  enforced  by  the  National  Government.  If  we  make  the 
South  allow  her  black  voters  their  rights,  we  must  also, 
through  a  constitutional  amendment,  or  by  congressional 
enactment,  make  the  North  do  equal  justice.  It  can  only 
be  done  by  one  of  these  causes.  The  intensity  of  prejudice 
would  to-day  make  almost  every  State  that  voted  for  Grant, 
where  this  suffrage  does  not  exist,  vote  against  its  bestowal. 
Missouri  cast  her  ballot  for  Grant  and  Slavery.  She  voted 
down  the  rights  of  man,  and  voted  up  the  representative  of 
these  rights.  She  struck  at  her  citizens  while  she  struck 
for  the  nation.  All  her  sisters  would  do  likewise.  Iowa 
and  Minnesota  would  have  no  followers  in  this  right  action 
to-day. 

It  must  be  done  at  Washington.  The  Constitution  de- 
mands it.  The  President  should  urge  it  —  Congress  ordain 
it.  Only  thus  can  the  blot  which  stains  this  jubilee-hour  be 
wiped  away.  General  Grant  has  not  received  all  the  votes 
that  legitimately  belong  to  him  in  this  election.  Thousands 
of  brown  hands  would  have  gladly  put  his  name  into  the 
ballot-box,  had  not  this  wicked  prejudice  forbade.  They 
felt  the  insult  and  the  ignominy  all  the  more  keenly  as 
those  same  hands  have  pulled  the  trigger  in  the  hottest 
of  the  fight,  under  the  same  great  General,  for  the  salva- 
tion of  the  country.  To-day  they  are  refused  the  privilege 
of  serving  in  the  bloodless  battle,  while  it  is  now  years 
since  they  were  allowed,  or  gladly  hastened,  or  were  in  not 
a  few  cases  even  compelled,  to  stand  upon  the  fiercest 
ridge  of  war. 

How  long  shall  this  evil  continue  ?  Every  one  must  labor 
and  pray  that  the  root  of  slavery  shall  be  extirpated,  and 
that  our  President  at  his  reelection  may  receive  the  vote  of 
every  man  who  shall  desire  to  express  his  gratitude  for  the 
liberty  which  he  has  secured  to  them  from  this  cruel  fetter 
of  ingratitude  and  injustice. 


622  AMERICA'S   PAST   AND   FUTURE. 

3.  But  equality  at  the  polls  is  not  the  only  work  laid  upon 
the  coming  government.     There  must  be  such  a  disposition 
of  its  patronage,  such  a  steadfast  expression  of  its  convic- 
tion, such    an  employment  of  its  influence,  as  will  tend  to 
the  abolition  of  the  whole  mass  of  prejudice  that  still  defiles 
the   national    heart.      I  am  aware  that  this  evil  cannot  be 
utterly  abolished  by  any  enactments.     The  leprosy  lies  deep 
within.      It  dwells    in   our  churches,    in  our   souls,   in  our 
education,  in  society.     It  still  makes  us  look  on  many  a  hu- 
man face  with  repulsion  which  is  of  the  complexion  of  the 
mother   of  our   Lord  —  nay,  of  the  Lord  himself.*    It  still 
leads  us  to  erect  barriers  between  us  and  our  kindred,  and 
to  make  us  and  them  talk  of  "  our  race  "  as  if  they  and  we 
had  a  different   parentage,   Savior,   and  eternity.     It  must 
come  to  an  end.      It  is  coming  to  an  end.      This  election  is 
a  great  advance  toward  that  end.     If  the  Administration  as 
faithfully  adhere  to  its  ruling  idea,  and  put  men  into  office 
everywhere  without  regard  to  color   and  with  regard  only 
to  capacity,  it  will  greatly  prosper  this  great  reform.     Let 
him  make  Frederick  Douglass  a  member  of  his  cabinet,  and 
the  nation  will  commend  and  imitate  his  courage. 

But  under  it,  as  well  as  through  it,  will  the  work  go  for- 
ward. Senators  and  representatives  will  enter  Congress  of 
the  condemned  hue.  They  have  already  become  mayors, 
secretaries  of  state,  lieutenant  governors;  they  hold  no  small 
influence  and  office  in  the  uplifted  South;  they  must  yet 
more.  Mississippi,  with  her  half  a  million  ;  South  Carolina, 
with  her  majority  of  this  tint ;  Tennessee,  where  they  stand 
between  the  loyal  whites  and  annihilation ;  Louisiana,  where 
they  have  wealth,  culture,  and  talents  in  their  ranks — these 
must  cast  down  all  bars  and  gates,  and  let  the  tides  of  hu- 
man, civil,  social,  and  Christian  life  flow  freely  among  all 
the  people.  To  this  complexion  shall  we  come  at  last. 

4.  Yet  more :  our  feelings  of  aversion  will  change  to  feel- 
ings of  regard.     The  complexion  at  which  we  now  profess 

*  See  Note  XXII. 


ELECTION  OF  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT.       623 

to  revolt  we  shall  look  upon  with  pleasure.  Vice  is  not  the 
only  thing  that  is  at  first  hated  arid  afterward  embraced. 
Virtue  is  more  frequently  subject  to  this  experience.  It  is 
very  rare  that  a  real  gift  of  God  is  fallen  in  love  with  at  first 
sight.  How  few  behold  in  religion  all  the  charms  with 
which  she  is  divinely  invested.  How  many  turn  with  dis- 
gust from  her  pleading,  pleasing  countenance.  How  few 
are  instinctively  drawn  to  temperance,  to  study,  to  work. 
The  world  beholds  iu  vice  everything  charming,  in  virtue 
everything  repulsive.  But  acquaintance  changes  this  ex- 
perience, and  we  cling  to  the  good  we  at  first  disdained. 
Nay,  we  usually  are  the  more  fond  in  proportion  as  we  were 
hostile.  It  is  the  law  of  our  nature  that  we  choose  that 
which  we  say  we  will  never  have.  If  you  hear  a  person 
declaring  that  he  will  never  be  a  Methodist,  be  sure  that  he 
will  yet  be  of  the  most  earnest  type  of  that  religion.  If  he 
says,  "  I  will  be  anything  sooner  than  a  Congregationalist," 
you  may  mark  him  as  fore-ordained  to  be  a  sober  deacon  of 
that  orthodox  church.  When  the  young  lady  says,  "  I'll 
marry  anybody  but  Mr.  Simpcrton,"  she  will  soon  be  found 
casting  her  most  languishing  meshes  around  that  just  de- 
spised youth.  When  pompous  young  Jones  says,  "I  hate 
the  very  looks  and  even  name  of  Miss  Marigold,"  be  you 
certain  he  will  ere  long  sa}'-  to  her,  "  Your  face  is  angelic, 
you  name  is  sweeter  than  the  lutes  of  paradise.  I  can  only 
live  in  the  light  of  your  affection."  So  shall  we  treat  our 
brethren  and  sisters  of  color.  We  shall  "  see  Helen's 
beauty  in  the  brow  of  Egypt."  We  shall  say,  "  What  a 
rich  complexion  is  that  brown  skin."  "  It  is  Italian,  Greek, 
Oriental,  perfect.  How  far  it  excels  our  chalky  hue."  We 
already  paint  our  houses  after  their  color.  Our  girls  crinkle 
their  hair  after  the  natural  curliness  of  their  sisters'  locks. 
This  is  one  of  God's  modes  of  curing  us  of  color-blindness. 
We  shall  see,  as  Mrs.  Kemble  says,  that  there  are  qualities 
in  the  human  skin  superior  to  a  pink  and  white  tint,  and 


624  AMERICA'S   PAST  AND  FUTURE. 

that  in  velvety  softness,  in  fineness  of  fiber,  in  richness  of 
tone,  this  despised  flesh  surpasses  our  own.* 

We  shall  be  attracted  to  this  hue  because  it  is  one  of 
God's  creatures,  and  a  beautiful  one  too  ;  because  it  is  a 
favorite  hue  of  the  human  race  ;  because,  chiefly,  we  have 
most  wickedly  loathed  and  scorned  it.  He  will  have  re- 
venge, and  will  yet  compel  us  to  discern  the  loveliness  of 
this  most  abhorred  virtue,  and  to  become  enamored  of  it. 
The  Song  of  Songs  will  have  a  more  literal  fulfillment  than  it 
has  ever  confessedly  had  in  America ;  and  the  long-existing, 
divinely-implanted  admiration  of  Caucasians  for  black  but 
comely  maidens,  be  the  proudly  acknowledged  and  honorably 
gratified  life  of  Northern  and  Southern  gentlemen. 

But  this  law  rests  on  no  mere  quip  of  the  fancy,  nor  is  it 
a  rebound  of  a  vehement  passion,  as  wrongfully  right  as  it 
had  been  wrongfully  wrong.  It  is  the  grand  undertone  of 
all  marriage.  It  is  the  Creator's  mode  of  compelling  the 
race  to  overleap  the  narrow  boundaries  of  families  and  tribes, 
into  which  blood,  so  called,  invariably  degenerates. 

"Not  like  with  like,  but  like  with  difference," 

is  the  law  of  marriage.    The  light  complexioned  turns  to  the 
dark,  and  the  dark  to  the  light,  as  day  to  night  and  night  to 

*  These  are  her  exact  words  :  "  Their  skins  are  all  (I  mean  of  blacks 
generally)  infinitely  finer  and  softer  than  the  skins  of  white  people. 
Perhaps  you  are  not  aware  that  among  the  white  race  the  finest  grained 
skins  generally  belong  to  persons  of  dark  complexion. 

"While  I  am  speaking  of  negro  countenances,  there  is  another  beauty 
which  is  not  at  all  unfrequent  among  those  I  see  here.  A  finely-shaped 
oval  face  —  and  those  who  know  (as  all  painters  and  sculptors,  all  who 
understand  beauty  do)  how  much  expression  there  is  in  the  outline  of 
the  head,  and  how  very  rare  it  is  to  see  a  well-formed  face,  will  be  apt 
to  consider  this  a  higher  matter  than  any  coloring,  of  which,  indeed,  the 
red  and  white  one  so  often  admired  is  by  no  means  the  most  rich, 
picturesque,  or  expressive."  —  Journal  of  a  Residence  on  a  Georgia 
Plantation  in  1838-9,  by  Frances  Ann  Kemlle.  Pages  41,  42.  Harper 
&  Brothers. 


ELECTION  OF  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT.       625 

day.  The  tall  seek  the  short,  and  the  short  the  tall ;  the 
small  the  large,  and  the  large  the  small.  Opposite  tem- 
peraments also  thus  incline  to  each  other.  Bishop  Morris 
says  that  he  can  select  husbands  and  their  wives  in  a  large 
company  by  this  law  of  like  and  difference.  Contrast  whets 
appetite.  Dr.  Holmes's  ten  lovers  dangling  in  the  silken 
noose  on  the  fatal  trap  of  Cupid,  being  asked  the  color  of 
the  eyes  that  caused  their  ruin,  —  . 

"  Ten  shadowy  lips  said  '  heavenly  blue,' 
And  ten  accused  '  the  darker  hue.'  " 

The  last  five  of  these  victims  were  undoubtedly  blue-eyed 
swains,  and  the  first  of  brown  complexion. 

By  this  law  only  will  yellow-haired  Germany  and  dark- 
skinned  France  become  one.  Only  thus  will  the  mediaeval 
feud  between  light-eyed  England  and  dark-eyed  Ireland 
come  to  an  end.  Let  their  youths  follow  their  instincts, 
and  the  differences  that  now  seem  barriers  of  eternity,  will 
become  magnets  of  eternity.  Thus,  too,  will  our  dividings 
cease.  The  lightest  and  darkest  of  the  children  of  Adam 
and  Noah  are  divinely  planted  together  in  this  land,  that 
they  may,  by  obeying  this  law  of  God,  work  out  the  per- 
fect oneness  of  the  race  of  man. 

Already,  too,  our  romancers  and  poets,  the  imaginative 
fore-flyers  of  the  slower-footed  fact,  are  putting  this  future 
into  their  fascinating  tales,  and  all  the  greedy  crowd  of  novel 
readers  are  finding  their  freshest  morsels  flavored  with  this 
celestial  truth.  The  stage  makes  an  octoroon  a  heroine, 
and  wins  thousands  to  the  admiration  of  a  color  on  the 
boards,  which  they  still  falsely  profess  to  detest  in  the  par- 
lor. Mrs.  Child,  in  her  "  Komance  of  the  Republic,"  gives 
a  vivid  portraiture  of  the  wrongs  and  rights  of  this  married 
life  and  love  in  conflict  with  the  curse  of  caste.  Anna 
Dickinson  waxes  yet  bolder,  and,  in  her  "  What  Answer  ?  " 
shows  how  inevitable,  how  beautiful  is  this  true  affection, 
40 


626  AMERICA'S   PAST   AND   FUTURE. 

despite,  nay,  including  this  difference  of  color.  And  the 
hour  is  not  far  off  when  the  white-hued  husband  shall  boast 
of  the  dusky  beauty  of  his  wife,  and  the  Caucasian  wife 
shall  admire  the  sun-kissed  countenance  of  her  husband,  as 
deeply,  and  as  unconscious  of  the  present  ruling  abhorrence 
as  is  his  admiration  of  her  lighter  tint.  Desdemona  was  as 
deeply  fascinated  by  Othello's  visage,  as  was  he  by  Desde- 
mona's.  That  hour  is  not  coming  —  it  already  is.  Not  a 
few  of  these  marriages  which  God  has  made,  and  whose 
legal  validity  man,  in  some  instances,  has  reluctantly  ac- 
knowledged, are  already  filling  homes  with  happiness,  and 
both  prophesying  and  leading  the  way  to  the  future  unity 
and  blessedness  of  America.  Amalgamation  is  God's  word, 
declaring  the  oneness  of  man,  and  ordaining  its  universal 
recognition.  Who  art  thou  that  fightest  against  God  ? 

5.  But  General  Grant's  peace  opens  the  way  for  yet  fur- 
ther victories,  if  any  in  your  minds  can  be  further.  The 
suffrage  of  woman  must  follow  that  of  the  African.  The 
proudest  female  must  march  behind  the  lowliest  negro.  She 
is  a  citizen  already,  frequently  a  tax-payer,  always  of  equal 
intelligence,  often  of  superior  virtue  to  man.  She  is  our 
mother  ;  and  who  believes  he  knows  more  than  his  mother, 
or  is  better  able  to  understand  and  exercise  any  duty?  She 
is  our  wife  ;  who  that  deserves  a  wife  'believes  himself 
the  superior  of  that  wedded  soul  ?  She  is  our  sister  ;  and 
who  does  not  know  that  when  in  school  together  she  more 
frequently  led  him  in  scholarship  than  he  her  ?  She  is 
of  the  Commonwealth,  having  equal  rights  with  every  other 
member.  She  is  bone  of  our  bone  and  flesh  of  our  flesh. 
Surely,  all  enforced  exclusion  of  her  from  her  just  claims  is 
the  greatest  injustice.  If  we  preeminently  despise  the  man 
who  strikes  a  woman,  how  should  we  feel  toward  the  State 
who  thus  strikes  down  all  its  women,  and  robs  them  of  all 
power  of  defense  from  its  blows  ? 

Above  all,  we  need  her  help.      Christ  is  seeking  to  estab- 


ELECTION  OF  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT.      627 

lish  His  empire  in  the  earth.  It  is  an  empire  of  peace,  of 
unity,  of  righteousness,  of  love.  It  is  to  be  established  in 
good-willing  men,  in  holy  laws,  in  sacred  institutions,  in 
purified  society.  How  can  this  be  done  except  by  the  co- 
operation of  the  best  and  most  numerous  members  of  that 
society  ?  Only  by  woman's  vote  can  the  kingdom  of  God 
be  completely  established.  Only  thus  can  we  save  the  State 
from  debauchery  and  utter  demoralization. 

That  work  will  go  forward.  It  is  advancing  everywhere ; 
and  when  the  next  election  comes  may  we  see  our  sisters 
sitting  by  us,  and  transforming  the  dirty,  smoky  atmosphere 
of  the  voting-rooms  into  sweet  and  quiet  parlors,  full  of 
pleasure  and  peace. 

The  temperance  movement  must  go  forward.  It  has  been 
held  back  by  the  imperative  demands  of  the  cause  of  free- 
dom. It  met  with  a  repulse  from  misjudging  men,  under 
wicked  leaders  ;  but  it  will  rally  and  move  on.  It  has  a 
grand  foundation  laid  in  the  convictions  of  every  heart,  the 
conclusions  of  every  understanding,  the  decisions  of  courts, 
the  statistics  of  jails  and  almshouses,  the  annals  of  crime,  a 
generation  of  totally  abstaining  people,  and  the  success  of 
the  experiment  of  prohibition.  Every  good  and  evil  inure 
to  its  benefit.  With  the  departure  of  the  giant  crime  of 
Slavery  to  its  own  hell,  the  movement  against  its  hardly 
inferior  associate  will  be  recommenced.  We  have  exchanged 
the  slaveholder's  ring  for  the  whisky  ring.  The  one  elected 
Presidents  ;  the  other  has  preserved  one  of  them  in  his  un- 
deserved seat.  We  have  abolished  the  one ;  we  must  the 
other.  To  this  reform  every  youth  should  consecrate  him- 
self. In  every  State  it  should  be  agitated.  Congress  should 
be  implored  to  establish  it  in  the  Territories  and  the  District 
of  Columbia.  The  new  South  must  adopt  it  to  save  her 
new  citizens  from  utter  demoralization.  Great  will  be  the 
happiness  of  the  nation  when  no  village  shall  be  cursed  with 
a  grogshop,  when  every  city  shall  be  as  pure  from  this  vice 


628  AMERICA'S   PAST   AND   FUTURE. 

as  the  rivers  of  Eden,  when  our  youth  shall  be  untainted 
with  this  appetite,  and  our  men  shall  not  err  through  strong- 
drink.  May  that  hour  soon  break  upon  the  waiting  realm, 
and  National  Prohibition  of  all  that  can  intoxicate  deliver 
our  land  from  its  last  and  heaviest  burden. 

Not  a  few  other  blessings  wait  on  the  coming  hours.  As 
clouds  of  angel  faces  surround  the  heads  of  victor  saints, 
misty  yet  distinct  in  beauty,  so  do  clouds  of  reforms,  the 
faces  of  the  true  angels,  messengers  of  God  to  man,  encom- 
pass the  victor  President. 

Black  were  the  clouds  about  the  head  of  Lincoln  when 
first  he  became  the  head  of  the  nation.  A  winter  storm  of 
darkness  and  death  beat  upon  his  head.  How  dark,  how 
dreadful  that  hour !  The  flush  of  morning  joy  at  his  success 
was  instantly  extinguished  in  the  sulphurous  folds,  shooting 
lightnings,  rumbling  thunders,  portending  ruin.  How  sad- 
ly, wearisomely,  patiently  did  he  wade  through  the  sea  of 
troubles,  and  by  opposing,  end  them.  A  slightly  brighter 
cloud  encompassed  the  last  election.  Still  it  was  a  dreary 
mixture  of  light  and  darkness.  Grant  was  still  held  at  bay 
before  Richmond.  Sherman  yet  lay  in  the  heart  of  the 
enemy's  country,  and  the  march  to  the  sea  was  but  a  crazy 
dream  of  those  two  generals,  as  it  seemed  to  loyal  and  rebel 
minds.  Thomas  had  scarcely  relieved  Nashville  of  its  be- 
leaguered hosts.  Gold  still  hung  high  above  the  hundreds. 
Europe  still  believed  and  hoped  that  Jeflerson  Davis  had 
created  a  nation.  Mexico  was  still  a  principality  of  France. 
Charleston  was  the  same  haughty  hold  of  slavedom.  Mobile 
snarled  defiance  from  all  her  forts  at  all  our  fleets.  Lee  was 
still  the  bepraised  general,  far  before  Grant,  in  English  and 
in  rebel  judgments.  Slaves  were  still  held  by  the  millions 
in  every  State,  from  Kentucky,  by  way  of  Virginia  and  the 
sea-line,  up  to  Arkansas.  Our  poor  boys  were  still  rotting 
to  death  by  the  thousands  at  Andersonville  and  in  the  Libby 
Prison.  Much  had  been  done  ;  but  all  would  be  lost  were 


ELECTION  OF  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT.       629 

not  much  more  done.  His  reelection  was  but  a  pledge,  a 
sign  of  pluck,  a  charge  on  the  enemy's  lines,  a  determina- 
tion never  to  submit  or  yield  till  the  victory,  how  far  soever 
distant,  should  be  attained.  To-day  all  this  is  past ;  and 
the  new  heavens  open  around  us  in  abundant  light.  Amer- 
ican ideas  are  breaking  in  pieces  all  nations.  They  have 
invaded  England,  and  elected  the  first  People's  Parliament 
that  ever  sat  in  her  realm ;  they  have  overrun  Germany, 
and  unified  that  long  disparted  nation  ;  they  have  entered 
Spain,  overturned  the  Inquisition,  driven  forth  a  ruler 
whose  seat  had  been  held  by  her  family  for  three  hundred 
years,  and  probably  in  some  line  of  her  blood  for  a  far  longer 
time,  and  are  even  now  discussing  the  establishment  of  the 
Republic  of  Iberia.  The  British  Provinces  have  organized 
a  nationality  which  is  a  precursor  of  their  admission  into 
the  greater  nationality  of  America.  Mexico  has  expelled 
Napoleon,  and  sustains  her  own  independence,  preparatory 
to  her  absorption  into  our  domain. 

In  enterprise  the  world  is  also  careering  like  a  ship  before 
the  wind.  The  girdle  of  the  nation  will  belt  her  zone  before 
another  year,  and  our  President  enter  the  Pacific  cities  — 
the  longest  journey  ever  made  by  the  head  of  a  nation 
through  its  territory.  The  South  will  be  filled  with  peace- 
ful, loving,  laboring  populations.  Emigration  will  set  in 
from  Africa,  Asia,  Europe,  and  the  islands  of  the  sea  ;  and 
the  world  make  gigantic  strides  to  the  glory  and  calm  of 
the  millennial  year. 

To  this  work,  and  honor,  and  reward  may  all  be  devoted. 
Let  Christ  abolish  sin  from  your  souls,  of  whatever  sort,  by 
His  indwelling  grace.  Let  your  heart  become  His  peaceful 
realm,  with  its  every  passion,  thought,  and  purpose  subject 
to  His  sway.  Labor  by  every  word  and  work  to  make  all 
other  hearts  equally  perfect.  Strive  to  bring  the  laws  of 
society  into  subjection  to  His  control.  Root  up  the  gnarled 


630  AMERICA'S   PAST   AND   FUTURE. 

tusks  of  prejudice.     Toil  cheerfully,  hopefully,  faithfully,  to 
bring  in  the  Grand  Sabbatic  Year,  the  Jubilee  of  Heaven. 

"  The  visions  seen  far  off,  and  sang  of  old 
By  holy  seers  and  prophets,  grasped  by  faith, 
And  longed  for,  though  the  half  could  ne'er  be  told 
In  language,  nor  by  hope  itself  conceived, 
Will  have  accomplishment,  —  a  waking  bliss,  — 
The  rest  foreshadowed  by  the  Church  of  God, 
The  golden  dawn  of  Everlasting  Day." 


NOTES. 


I. 

THE  FUGITIVE  SLAVE  BILL.  —  (Page  1.) 

AFTER  a  struggle  of  over  seven  months,  the  bill  for  the  rendition  of 
fugitives  passed  Congress,  September  13,  1850.  It  was  the  first  act  of 
the  national  government  in  avowed  support  of  the  institution  of  slavery, 
after  the  great  debate  had  sprung  up.  Its  previous  laws  of  this  sort 
had  been  enacted  in  the  state  of  darkness  that  had  beclouded  the  pop- 
ular mind  concerning  the  duty.  In  the  conflict  that  had  been  raging  for 
nearly  twenty  years,  the  slave  power  had  met  with  sympathy  from  the 
general  government,  in  its  refusal  to  receive  petitions,  in  the  attempt  to 
purge  the  mails  of  what  were  called  "  incendiary  publications,"  and  in 
other  minor  expressions  of  hostility  to  abolitionism.  But  it  had  never 
done  anything  in  direct  support  of  slavery.  This  act  was  of  that  char- 
acter. 

It  immediately  caused  intense  excitement  in  all  the  Free  States,  and 
the  question  of  the  prerogatives  of  law  was  universally  discussed. 
Pulpits  defended  not  this  act  especially,  but  the  duty  of  obeying  every 
act  of  legislation,  as  the  only  foundation  upon  which  society  could 
exist.  They  also  in  all  cases  apologized  for,  and  in  most  cases  defended, 
the  system  of  slavery.  Among  many  others,  two  sermons,  setting  forth 
this  view  with  much  acuteness,  were  published  in  the  "  Journal  of  Com- 
merce." The  public  mind  was  made  timid  by  these  warnings  and  plead- 
ings, and  the  cause  of  humanity  seemed  in  danger  of  destruction  through 
fear  of  touching  the  sacred  ark  of  law. 

But  God  raised  up  many  defenders  of  His  imperilled  cause.  Pulpit 
contended  with  pulpit,  press  with  press.  Out  of  the  conflict  the  public 
conscience  grew  to  a  clear  perception  of  the  principle,  that  that  law  only 
can  be  law,  in  its  true  sovereignty,  which  embodies  the  conscience  of 
man  and  dwells  in  the  bosom  of  God. 

(631) 


632  NOTES. 

II. 

THE  ASSAULT  ON  CHARLES  SOMNER.  —  (Page  57.) 

The  Nebraska  Bill  brought  forth  fruit  after  its  kind.  Conceived  in 
iniquity,  it  bred  civil  war.  The  seat  of  this  war  was  in  the  southern 
territory  of  Kansas,  though  the  act  that  inaugurated  it  was  known  by 
the  name  of  the  upper  territory  of  Nebraska.  As  the  compromise  repeal 
was  not  followed  immediately  by  an  enactment  recognizing  slavery  as 
existent  in  these  dependencies,  it  was  evident  that  if  the  North  should 
first  settle  the  territory,  she  would  have  some  chance  to  shape  its  char- 
acter. Emigrant  Aid  Societies  were,  therefore,  established,  and  every 
appliance  put  in  force  to  stimulate  immigration.  Bold  leaders  guided 
bold  followers  to  the  first  battle-field  in  America,  where  blood  mingled 
freely  with  the  ballot  as  an  arbiter  in  the  strife.  Heroes  sprang  up  al- 
most autochthonous.  Men  never  known  before  became  known  forever, 
of  whom  John  Brown,  the  martyr  of  Virginia,  was  by  far  the  chief.  The 
slave  power  poured  in  their  men ;  but,  as  in  all  the  subsequent  contests, 
so  then,  they  could  not  equal  the  friends  of  freedom  in  numbers.  The 
aid  of  the  national  government,  and  their  savagery,  made  up  for  their 
lack  of  numbers.  The  administration  constantly  favored  their  cause, 
decided  their  minority  constitution,  which  established  slavery,  alone 
authentic,  and  endeavored  to  force  her  admission  into  Congress  on  that 
basis.  This  was  fiercely  opposed,  and  by  the  Arigor  and  daring  of  the  anti- 
slavery  leaders,  was  successfully  resisted.  May  19,  1856,  Charles  Sum- 
ner,  Senator  from  Massachusetts,  delivered  a  masterly  oration  upon  the 
course  of  the  government  and  the  slave  power.  This  freedom  of  speech, 
it  was  felt,  was  harming  the  cause  of  the  slaveholders.  He  must  be 
punished,  and  it  suppressed.  So  with  the  knowledge  and  in  the  presence 
of  their  leader,  Senator  Douglas,  who  was  then  expecting  the  nomina- 
tion to  the  Presidency,  on  May  22  an  assault  was  made  on  Mr.  Sum- 
ner,  as  he  sat  at  his  desk,  writing,  by  Preston  C.  Brooks,  a  member  of 
the  House  of  Representatives  from  Soutli  Carolina.  About  fifteen  very 
severe  blows  were  inflicted  on  his  head.  He  pulled  up  his  seat  in  his 
endeavors  to  escape  his  would-be  assassin.  He  was  nearly  killed,  and 
for  several  years  was  unable  to  do  any  public  service. 

The  country  instinctively  felt  that  this  was  a  new  step  in  the  march 
of  the  iniquity.  It  had  defrauded  the  Territories  of  their  rights.  It 
now  sought  to  extinguish  all  State  equality.  For  if  freedom  of  debate 
in  Congress  was  suppressed,  all  State  rights  were  practically  annihi- 
lated. Only  as  the  slave  power  allowed  would  any  State  presume  to 
act.  The  "  United  States  "  ceased  to  be,  and  an  oligarchy  became  the 


NOTES.  633 

sole  sovereign  of  the  country.     The  following  resolution,  adopted  at 
Faneuil  Hall,  is  an  example  of  that  sentiment :  — 

Resolved,  That  in  this  outrage  we  see  new  encroachments  upon  Freedom,  new 
violations  of  State  rights ;  that  the  attack  is  to  be  rebuked,  not  only  as  a  cowardly 
assault  upon  a  defenseless  man,  but  as  a  crime  against  the  right  of  Free  Speech 
and  the  dignity  of  a  Free  State. 

The  Massachusetts  legislature  also  declared,  in  its  resolves,  that  it 
was  "  a  ruthless  attack  upon  the  liberty  of  speech,  and  an  indignity  to 
the  Commonwealth  of  Massachusetts."  She  also  demanded  for  her 
Representatives  in  Congress  freedom  of  speech,  and  announced  her  de- 
termination to  sustain  them  "  in  the  rights  of  American  citizens." 

Thus  the  blows  upon  Sumner  were  the  natural  precursor  of  the  shot 
at  Sumter.  Both  were  against  the  Nation  and  Humanity.  Both  came 
from  Disunion  and  Slavery. 

The  act  made  the  presidential  campaign,  then  beginning,  yet  more 
fierce,  and  greatly  increased  the  anti-slavery  vote. 

The  discourse  on  this  subject  was  published  in  "  The  Westfield  News- 
letter," the  newspaper  of  the  town  where  it  was  preached,  at  the  request 
of  a  number  of  leading  citizens.  It  is  with  pleasure  that  their  note 
of  invitation  is  here  reprinted,  both  as  a  memorial  of  old  times  and  old 
friends,  of  whom  the  greater  part  continue  to  this  present,  but  some  are 
fallen  asleep,  and  also  as  a  proof  that  its  words  were  only  levelled  up, 
if  even  that  were  possible,  to  the  hight  of  the  hour.  These  gentlemen 
of  business,  social  and  religious  standing,  by  their  indorsement,  show 
how  deep  and  wide  the  tide  of  feeling  flowed. 

WESTFIELD,  June  11, 1S56. 

To  RKV.  MR.  HAVEN. 
We,  the  undersigned,  having  listened  with  the  deepest  interest  to  your  discourse 

of  last  Sabbath  afternoon,  and  feeling  that  such  wholesome  truths  ought,  at  the 

present  juncture,  to  have  a  widespread  circulation,  would  respectfully  request  the 

same  to  be  published. 
In  making  this  request,  we  feel  we  are  but  expressing  the  unanimous  sentiment 

of  the  large  audience  convened  on  that  occasion. 

II.  HARRISON,  ELIJAH  PORTKR, 

SAMUEL  Dow,  T.  P.  COLLINS, 

JOHN  KNEIL,  RALPH  LAY, 

GEORGE  S.  SAVAGE,       P.  N.  WESTON, 
D.  N.  DAY.  ALBERT  A.  RAY, 

B.  R.  LEWIS,  E.  A.  RAY, 

M.  D.  MOORE,  A.  P.  RAND. 

Messrs.  HARRISON,  Dow,  KNEIL,  and  others. 

Gentlemen  :  Agreeably  to  your  request,  I  submit  the  remarks  made  last  Sabbath 
afternoon  to  your  disposal,  hoping  that  they  may  aid,  though  slightly,  to  a  right 
perception  of  the  sin  and  peril  of  our  beloved  nation,  and  to  the  instant  and  earnest 
employment  of  all  the  means  approved  by  our  Creator  for  our  present  and  perpetual 
salvation.  Very  truly  yours, 

WESTFIELD,  June  11,  1866.  G.  HAVEN. 


634  NOTES. 


III. 

SLAVERY'S  LAST  TRIUMPH. —  (Page  87.) 

The  fiercest  political  battle  that  till  then  had  been  fought  in  America, 
had  resulted  in  the  defeat  of  John  C.  Fremont,  the  candidate  of  the 
anti-slavery  forces,  first  known  as  the  Republican  party  in  this  cam- 
paign, and  the  election  of  James  Buchanan  of  Pennsylvania.  It  was  a 
victory  that  ruined  the  victors.  The  strength  of  the  friends  of  freedom 
was  made  known.  Their  party  had  grown  from  157,123  in  the  last  pres- 
idential election,  to  1,340,514.  They  had  elected  a  Congress,  which 
was  so  largely  impregnated  with  the  free  sentiments,  that  it  restrained 
the  Executive  from  his  full  and  fell  purposes.  The  discourse  was  there- 
fore a  declaration  of  the  intent  and  scope  of  the  triumphant  party ;  a 
declaration  that  was  substantially  fulfilled  in  all  the  leading  efforts  of 
the  administration  in  respect  to  Kansas,  Cuba,  the  Dred  Scott  decision, 
which  deprived  every  man  of  color  of  every  constitutional  protection, 
and  the  decision  from  the  same  court  prepared,  but  not  declared,  that 
reopened  the  slave  traffic  in  every  free  State.  Lincoln's  election  alone 
prevented  that  declaration.  During  its  existence,  and  with  its  conni- 
vance, the  foreign  or  African  slave  trade  was  reopened,  and  invasions 
of  Mexico  and  Central  America  were  carried  out ;  while  its  bequest  of 
the  most  terrible  civil  war  in  "history,  far  surpassed  and  more  than  an- 
swered all  the  statements  of  its  intent  and  effort,  and  showed  that  had 
not  our  people  been  willing  to  die  by  the  hundreds  of  thousands,  this 
roll  of  lamentations,  mourning,  and  woe  would  have  been  more  than 
fulfilled. 


IV. 

"IT   WILL    BE     DEMANDED    OF    US,     DROP    FOR    DROP,    BY    THE    GoD    OF 

JUSTICE." —  (Page  112.) 

Eight  years  afterward,  President  Lincoln,  in  his  last  inaugural,  thus 
spoke :  — 

Yet  if  God  wills  that  the  war  continue  until  all  the  wealth  piled  by  the  bond- 
man's two  hundred  and  fifty  years  of  unrequited  toil  shall  be  sunk,  and  until  every 
drop  of  blood  drawn  with  the  lash  shall  be  paid  by  another  drawn  with  the  sword, 
as  was  said  three  thousand  years  ago,  so  still  it  must  be  said,  that  the  judgments 
of  the  Lord  are  true  and  righteous  altogether. 


NOTES.  635 


V. 

CANAAN'S  CUBSE  NOTHING  TO  DO  WITH  THE  AFRICAN  AND  HIS 
SLAVERY.  —  (Page  124.) 

The  position  was  long  held  by  abolitionists,  that  the  curse  upon  Ca- 
naan was  a  prophecy  of  his  political  subjugation  to  the  children  of 
Israel,  and  that  he  was  not  the  father  of  the  African  race,  and  his  curse 
had  given  no  authority  for  African  slavery.  This  was  opposed  with  in- 
tense vigor  by  the  Southern  pulpit  and  its  Northern  sympathizers.  Even 
so  late  as  1869,  a  lecturer  could  make  "  cursed  be  Canaan"  a  title  for  a 
witty  satire  against  slavery  and  caste.  But  how  false  it  was,  and  how 
thoroughly  exploded,  may  be  seen  from  the  following  extract  from  "  The 
Christian  Advocate  "  of  January,  1869,  published  at  Nashville,  the  official 
organ  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  South.  Its  learned  editor, 
Rev.  Dr.  Summers,  thus  confesses  the  wrongfulness  of  that  famous  plea 
for  American  slavery  :  — 

The  descendants  of  Ham's  fourth  son,  Canaan,  were  exclusively  involved  in 
Noah's  malediction;  but  they  were  not  negroes,  nor,  so  far  as  appears,  any  darker 
in  their  hue  than  the  Jews,  to  whom,  as  Shemites,  they  were  brought  into  servi- 
tude, as  they  were  afterwards  to  the  Greeks  and  Romans,  the  descendants  of 
Japheth. 

We  do  not  doubt  that  the  black  races  of  Africa,  including  all  the  negroes,  de- 
scended from  Cush  and  Phut,  two  of  the  sons  of  Ham,  with  perhaps  a  little  inter- 
mingling from  the  descendants  of  Mizraim,  another  of  his  sons,  who  settled  in 
Egypt. 

VI. 

"  ONE  HALF  THE  FAMILY  THE  PROPERTY  OF  THE  OTHER." —  (Page  132.) 

A  clergyman  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  Rev.  J.  D.  Long, 
when  travelling  a  circuit  in  Maryland,  stopped  at  the  house  of  one  of 
his  congregation.  After  dinner  they  went  to  walk. 

"  Did  you  notice  anything  peculiar  about  my  family?  "  said  his  host. 

"  Nothing  especial,"  was  the  reply. 

"  Did  you  not  see  the  girls  that  waited  on  the  table?  " 

"  I  noticed  that  there  were  some." 

"  Those  girls  are  my  daughters,  the  children  of  my  first  wife,  who 
was  my  slave.  I  lived  happily  with  her,  and  as  honorably  as  the  State 
would  allow.  When  she  died,  I  married  my  present  wife,  a  white  lady, 
whose  daughters  sat  at  the  table.  The  older  sisters  are  the  slaves  of 
the  younger." 

"The  elder  shall  serve  the  younger"  was  strangely  fulfilled  in  this 
instance.  It  was  one  of  a  myriad  of  examples  of  the  mixed  condition 
of  slaveholding  families. 


636  NOTES. 

VII. 

THE  MOVEMENT  AT  HARPER'S  FERRY.  —  (Page  153.) 

The  seizure  of  the  arsenal  at  Harper's  Ferry  was  made  on  the  night 
of  October  17th,  1859.  It  was  arranged  for  the  24th;  but  Captain 
Brown  suspected  a  traitor  in  his  band,  and  struck  earlier  to  escape  his 
treachery.  The  consequence  was,  that  many  of  his  supporters,  both 
from  the  North  and  among  the  slaves,  were  not  ready,  and  his  plans 
thus  failed  of  connection  and  of  success. 

He  intended  to  make  his  rendezvous  in  the  hills,  but  delayed,  fatally 
for  himself,  all  the  forenoon  in  the  arsenal  which  he  occupied.  He  had 
twenty -two  associates,  sixteen  whites  and  six  colored.  When  a  workman 
asked  the  guard  of  the  arsenal  by  what  authority  he  had  taken  possession 
of  public  property,  he  replied,  "By  the  authority  of  Almighty  God." 

The  excitement  of  the  nation  was  wonderful.  No  event  of  the  war 
produced  such  a  startling  effect  on  the  public  mind.  Every  one  saw 
that  it  betokened  a  new  phase  of  the  growing  struggle.  Only  one  of 
the  daily  press,  however,  had  the  courage  to  avow  the  justice  of  the 
act.  "  The  Evening  Post,"  on  the  day  of  its  announcement,  stood  by 
the  principles  involved  in  his  action.  Most  Republican  journals  de- 
nounced him.  The  country  has  not  yet  fully  discerned  the  value  of  this 
courageous  and  Christian  deed.  A  complete  history  of  the  event  has 
not  yet  been  written.  It  will  be  found  to  be  far  more  wisely  and  skill- 
fully arranged  than  is  even  now  allowed.  It  was  undoubtedly  the  needed 
deed.  The  words  and  acts  of  the  reform  required  this  step.  They  had 
done  their  work.  A  blow  against  it  was  the  opening  gun  of  the  war. 
The  soldiers  soon  detected  its  value,  and  the  famous  "  John  Brown 
song"  became  the  most  popular  song  of  the  army  and  the  war.  It 
was  first  sung  within  less  than  three  months  after  the  fall  of  Sumter, 
by  the  Massachusetts  Twelfth,  marching  down  State  Street,  under 
the  command  of  Colonel  Fletcher  Webster,  son  of  Daniel  Webster. 
Captain  Brown  will  undoubtedly  stand  forth  as  the  John  Huss  of  this 
reform,  one  the  most  exalted  of  its  many  martyrs  in  the  love  and 
honor  of  future  generations. 

VIII. 
BUNKER'S  HILL  AND  HARPER'S  FERRY.  —  (Page  195.) 

The  analogy  between  these  two  historic  events  has  been  suggested  by 
several  speakers  and  writers.  It  has  not  been  as  carefully  elaborated 
as  it  deserves  to  be,  and  will  be  by  future  historians.  It  may  not  be 


NOTES.  637 

amiss  to  state  a  few  of  the  points  of  resemblance  they  will  detect,  both 
in  respect  to  the  enterprises  themselves,  and  their  real  leaders. 

They  are  not  unlike  in  rashness,  viewed  in  the  light  of  cool,  sagacious 
generalship.  Consider  the  former.  Fifteen  hundred  untrained  soldiers, 
with  only  four  rounds  apiece  of  cartridge  and  ball,  planted  themselves 
behind  a  mere  bank  of  turf  and  sticks,  thrown  up  in  less  than  twelve 
hours,  within  a  few  rods  of  a  ship  channel,  where  the  enemy's  men-of- 
war  lay,  and  whence  they  could  rake  them  on  three  sides,  and  cut  off 
their  retreat  on  the  fourth.  Consider,  further,  that  a  great  city  was  less 
than  a  mile  distant,  full  of  ammunition  and  thoroughly  trained  soldiers, 
and  its  nearest  eminence,  in  hight  and  distance,  commanded  their  site 
as  perfectly  as  though  it  had  been  perched  over  their  heads  but  a  rood 
off.  Is  there  greater  military  wisdom  in  putting  such  a  handful  of  raw 
militia  into  such  a  trap,  than  Captain  Brown  showed  in  his  operations? 
Wellington  nor  Washington  would  have  never  undertaken  the  former 
any  sooner  than  the  latter. 

If  we  look  at  each  of  them,  as  they  appeared  to  the  hopes  or  even  the 
dreams  of  Warren  and  of  Brown,  we  shall  find  them  not  dissimilar.  No 
historian  ever  has  clearly  set  forth  the  immediate  practical  good  that 
the  encampment  on  Bunker's  Hill  was  intended  or  desired  to  effect : 
we  doubt  if  they  ever  will.  It  could  not  have  been  dreamed  for  a 
moment,  that  their  position  could  be  retained  for  any  length  of  time. 
Without  shelter,  without  rocky  ramparts,  or  means  to  erect  them,  with- 
out ammunition  or  cannon,  or  provision,  shut  off  from  all  communica- 
tion from  the  main  army  as  completely  as  if  in  a  besieged  fortress,  they 
could  not  have  hoped  for  anything  but  a  bloody  battle,  fruitless  in  its 
immediate  results  even  if  successful,  or  a  final  submission  of  the  whole 
force  by  the  slow,  but,  in  this  case,  most  certain  process  of  siege.  Had 
not  the  British  been  rash  with  rage  and  pride,  they  could  have  had  the 
whole  fifteen  hundred  in  their  hands  in  less  than  a  week  without  the 
loss  of  a  man,  as  easily  as  the  Virginians  could  have  starved  Captain 
Brown  into  surrender,  had  they,  too,  had  the  grace  of  patience.  It 
may  be  said  the  Americans  made  a  blunder,  and  located  themselves 
nearer  Boston,  and  on  a  lower  hill,  than  they  intended.  So  the  leader 
of  the  Harper's  Ferry  enterprise  said  he  made  a  blunder,  and  did  not 
follow  any  of  his  plans  in  entering  the  arsenal.  History  will  give  them 
both  the  benefits  of  their  claim,  if  she  gives  either.  What  then?  The 
hill  they  intended  to  occupy  is  just  as  completely  shut  off  from  the  camp 
as  the  one  they  fortified.  It  has  only  one  advantage  over  the  latter. 
This  one  is  overtopped  by  Copp's  Hill  in  Boston,  that  one,  not.  It  is, 
however,  within  reach  of  its  fire,  as  well  as  that  of  the  fleet.  The 
mountains  on  which  Brown  said  he  meant  to  establish  himself,  are  not 
subject  to  like  objection.  The  enterprise  of  Putnam,  Prescott,  and  War- 
ren has  not  any  such  claim  to  real  necessity  as  must  be  allowed  to  the 


638  NOTES. 

fight  at  Lexington  and  the  fortification  of  Dorchester  Eights.  It  was  a 
trial  battle.  It  would  have  always  been  branded  as  criminally  foolish, 
but  for  the  higher  than  strategetical,  or  so  called  practical  reasons,  which 
incited  it,  and  especially  but  for  the  wonderful  fruits  it  brought  forth  in 
the  hearts  of  friends  and  foes.  Will  not  the  future  historian  of  the  great 
conflict  of  slavery  and  freedom  find  like  analogies  in  the  events  of  Har- 
per's Ferry  ?  In  one  respect  we  pray  and  believe  they  will  totally  differ. 
The  former  was  the  prelude  of  a  long  and  cruel  civil  war.  The  latter, 
we  hope,  will  prove  to  be  the  only  bloody  interruption  to  the  peaceable 
progress  of  this  cause.  It  will  certainly  have  this  relation,  if  the  slave 
masters  learn  more  wisdom  from  this  event  than  our  British  masters  did 
from  Bunker's  Hill.* 

We  cannot  fail  to  notice  the  remarkable  resemblance  of  the  real  leaders 
of  these  enterprises,  both  in  respect  to  their  own  temperament,  as  well 
as  in  their  relation  to  their  associates  in  the  general  movement.  Warren 
differed  as  much  from  the  other  great  leaders  in  the  cause  of  liberty 
then,  as  John  Brown  did  from  those  of  to-day.  His  voice  was  fierce  for 
war  long  before  the  others  considered  the  argument  of  peace  exhausted. 
His  deeds  were  like  his  words.  On  the  Lexington  day,  he  was  fighting 
in  the  ranks,  while  Hancock  and  Samuel  Adams,  equally  great  patriots, 
and  esteemed  by  the  king  far  more  dangerous  rebels,  felt  it  their  duty 
to  seek  safety  in  flight.  His  rash  courage  almost  sealed  his  fate  that 
day.  For  at  West  Cambridge  a  ball  passed  so  near  his  head  as  to  carry 
away  the  pin  that  fastened  his  earlock.  Had  he  been  captured  at  Bun- 
ker's Hill,  as  he  undoubtedly  would  have  been  but  for  the  fortunate 
stab  of  a  bayonet,  he  would  most  certainly  have  been  hung  within  a 
month  on  Boston  Common,  by  the  Governor  of  Massachusetts,  for 
"murder,  treason,  and  inciting  to  insurrection." 

There  are  only  two  points  of  difference  between  these  transactions. 
The  first,  that  those  who  fought  were,  in  the  one  case,  themselves  the 
victims  of  the  oppression,  in  the  other,  chiefly  sympathizers  with  these 
victims.  This  is  not  quite  true,  though  constantly  asserted.  For  col- 
ored men,  free  and  slave,  were  engaged  at  Harper's  Ferry.  Some  were 
slain,  some  escaped,  some  were  captured  and  hung.  It  was  planned 
and  perfected,  theoretically,  among  the  fugitives  of  Canada.  Colonel 
Washington's  favorite  slave  was  among  the  slain,  and  no  one  knows,  no 
one  can  know,  till  slavery  is  abolished,  how  great  an  army  was  pledged 
to  meet  at  the  rendezvous  in  the  mountains. 

The  second  point  of  difference  is,  that  much  legislative  and  military 
preparation  preceded  the  former  encounter,  none  the  latter.  It  will  be 
noticed,  in  connection  with  this  fact,  that  the  ruling  government  of  Mas- 
sachusetts had  allowed,  for  many  years,  mass  meetings,  congresses,  peti- 

*  This  note  is  printed  as  it  was  published  in  December,  I860.  The  analogy  has 
grown  more  complete  with  the  events  that  have  since  occurred. 


NOTES.  639 

tions  of  its  subjects,  the  collection  of  military  stores,  and,  at  last,  permit- 
ted fourteen  thousand  of  these  rebels  to  be  encamped  under  arms  within 
three  miles  of  its  Capitol.  Suppose  Virginia  had  granted  its  subjects 
such  privileges,  would  they  not  have  developed  civil  and  military  lead- 
ers, and  executed  enterprises  of  great  pith  and  moment,  without  the  aid 
of  a  foreign  arm?  Let  us  reflect  that  history,  which  is  the  voice  of 
humanity,  never  takes  into  account,  in  its  ultimate  and  irreversible  judg- 
ment, immediate  success  or  failure.  The  final  cause  rules  here  as  every- 
where. Warren  and  Bunker's  Hill  are  still,  and  ever  will  be,  the  most 
thrilling  names  of  the  Revolutionary  struggle.  Those  to  whose  liberty 
they  are  dedicated,  have  compelled  all  nations  to  do  them  reverence, 
by  their  own  unceasing,  enthusiastic  devotion.  So  the  like,  yet  far 
greater  admiration  of  the  Afric-American  race,  when  they  shall  have 
achieved  their  freedom,  will  compel  all  the  world  to  revere  the  names 
of  John  Brown  and  Harper's  Ferry.  Their  representative  shall  yet 
stand  with  the  descendant  of  John  Brown  and  the  successor  of  Governor 
Wise,  in  mutual  amity  and  grateful  reverence  before  a  commemorative 
monument  at  Harper's  Ferry,  as  the  descendants  of  George  the  Third  * 
and  Joseph  Warren  lately  stood  with  the  representative  of  emancipated 
Massachusetts,  cordial  and  reverent,  before  the  sacred  memorials  of 
Bunker's  Hill. 

IX. 

"THE  OPEN  SLAVE  PEN."— (Page  244.) 

The  following  lines  from  the  late  poems  of  John  J.  Piatt,  are  a  fitting 
memorial  of  a  vanished  horror  :  — 

We  start  from  sleep  in  morning's  buoyant  dawn, 
And  find  the  horror  which  our  sleep  oppressed 

A  vanished  darkness,  in  the  daylight  gone  — 
The  nightmare's  burden  leaves  the  stifled  breast. 

Yet  still  a  presence  moves  about  the  brain, 

Some  frightful  shadow  lost  in  hazy  light; 
And  in  the  noonday  highway  comes  again, 

The  loathsome  phantom  of  the  breathless  night. 

So,  while  before  these  hateful  doors  I  stand, 
I  feel  the  bordering  darkness  which  is  past, 

*  The  Prince  of  Wales  and  the  President  of  the  Bunker  Hill  Monument  Associa- 
tion, Hon.  George  Washington  Wnrren.  What  connection  of  names  and  men  could 
be  more  significant?  Governor  Wise  has  since  approved  the  abolition  of  slavery. 
The  Bunker  Hill  Monument,  at  Charlestown,  Virginia,  will  as  surely  crown  that 
spot  with  its  glorious  memories. 


640  NOTES. 

Or  passing  surely  from  the  awakened  land ; 
The  nightmare  clutches  me  and  holds  me  fast. 

Back  from  the  years  that  seem  so  long  ago, 
Keturn  the  dark  processions  which  have  been; 

Lifting  again  lost  manacles  of  woe, 

They  enter  here  —  they  vanish,  going  in. 

Hark  to  the  smothered  murmur  of  a  race 

Within  these  walls,  —  its  helpless  wail  and  moan,  — 

Which,  for  the  ancient  shadow  on  its  face, 

Called  not  the  morning's  new-born  light  its  own ! 

Imprisoned  here,  what  unforgotten  cries 

Of  hopeless  torture,  and  what  sights  of  woe, 

From  cotton  field  and  rice  plantation  rise  !  — 

These  walls  have  heard,  and  seen,  and  witness  show. 

The  human  drove,  the  human  driver,  see ! 

Hark,  the  dread  blood-hound  in  the  swamp  at  bay ! 
The  whipping-post  reechoes  agony ; 

The  slave  mart  blackens  all  the  shameful  day. 

The  wife  and  husband,  see,  asunder  thrust ! 

The  mother  dragged  from  her  far  children's  wail ! 
The  maiden  torn  from  love  and  given  to  lust  — 

The  Human  Family  in  a  bill  of  sale. 

All  sounds  ree'cho,  all  sights  reappear ; 

(O  blindness,  deafness.!  that  ye  cannot  be!) 
All  sounds  of  woe  that  have  been  heard,  I  hear ! 

All  sights  of  shame  that  have  been  seen,  I  see ! 

O  sounds,  be  still!     O  visions,  leave  the  day! 

What  thunder  trembled  on  the  sultry  air  ? 
What  lightnings  went  upon  their  breathless  way? 

Behold  the  stricken  gates  of  old  despair ! 

The  writing  on  these  barbarous  walls  was  plain ; 

The  curse  has  fallen  none  would  understand ; 
God's  deluge  ere  another  happier  rain ; 

His  plow  of  fire  before  the  reaper's  land ! 

The  awful  nightmare  slips  into  its  night, 

With  cannon-flash  and  noise  of  hurrying  shell. 

O  prisons,  open  for  returning  light ! 
The  sun  is  in  the  world,  and  all  is  well. 


NOTES.  641 

X. 

FIRST  ABOLITION  PROCLAMATION. —  (Page  269.) 

The  first  proclamation  that  declared  for  the  abolition  of  slavery,  was 
read  in  Congress,  Friday,  March  6,  1862.  In  it  Mr.  Lincoln  proposed 
the  following  joint  resolution  : 

Resolved,  That  the  United  States  ought  to  cooperate  with  any  State  which  may 
adopt  a  gradual  abolishment  of  slavery,  giving  to  such  State  pecuniary  aid,  to  be 
used  by  such  State  in  its  discretion,  to  compensate  for  the  inconvenience,  public 
and  private,  produced  by  such  a  change  of  system. 

He  argued  that  this  would  "  initiate  emancipation,"  and  prevent  the 
border  States  from  going  with  the  Confederacy  in  case  the  government 
should  be  forced  to  acknowledge  the  independence  of  one  part  of  the 
disaffected  region. 

Congress  and  the  country  recognized  the  importance  of  the  step.  The 
telegraph  declared  "the  President's  Message  excited  deep  interest  in 
the  House  to-day.  It  forms  the  theme  of  earnest  conversation."  "The 
Tribune,"  of  March  8,  said,  "It  is  one  of  those  few  great  scriptures 
that  live  in  history,  and  mark  an  epoch  in  the  lives  of  nations  and  races. 
The  first  era  of  the  supremacy  of  the  rights  of  man  in  this  country 
dates  from  the  Declaration  of  Independence ;  the  second  began  on  the 
6th  of  March,  1862,  with  the  Emancipation  Message  of  President  Lin- 
coln." It  was  an  unnoticed  coincidence,  that  Webster's  speech,  sur- 
rendering himself,  and  so  far  as  he  could,  his  party  and  State  and  section, 
to  slavery,  was  pronounced  on  the  same  day  that  this  message  was  read, 
March  7th.  Twelve  years  to  a  day  had  reversed  completely  that  fatal 
descent  of  the  North,  and  raised  the  nation  to  its  true  bight.  Thence- 
forward to  the  next  and  bolder  step,  universal  and  unconditional  eman- 
cipation, was  easy  and  inevitable. 

XI. 

LETTER  TO  THE  LONDON  WATCHMAN. — (Page  291.) 

The  circumstances  attending  the  writing  of  this  letter  ought  to  ac- 
company its  publication  in  this  form,  as  a  defence  for  what  might  seem 
to  some  an  inappropriate  intrusion  of  American  ideas  into  a  British 
journal.  Having  a  letter  of  introduction  from  Rev.  Dr.,  now  Bishop 
Thomson,  to  the  late  and  lamented  Rev.  J.  A.  Riggs,  then  editor  in 
chief  of  the  Watchman,  on  calling  upon  him,  a  conversation  ensued  on 
American  affairs.  It  was  remarked  that  the  British  public  seemed  but 
little  conversant  with  the  questions  involved  in  this  controversy,  and 
41 


642  NOTES. 

the  position  of  the  American  government.  The  editor  requested  a  com- 
munication setting  forth  these  points.  It  was  suggested  that  a  full  state- 
ment would  not  be  acceptable  to  his  readers.  The  reply  was,  that  free 
speech  was  always  allowed.  In  Paris,  a  few  weeks  after,  on  the  Fourth 
of  July,  the  letter  was  written.  The  proofs  were  sent  to  Paris,  with  a 
note,  asking  if  we  wished  it  to  publish  treason,  and  if  our  American 
editors  would  allow  articles  against  a  Republican  form  of  government 
to  appear  in  their  journals.  It  was  replied  that  it  "  was  asked  to 
publish  nothing.  Free  speech  was  declared  to  be  the  law  of  all  British 
journalism.  Any  American  editor  would  admit  a  defence  of  British 
ideas,  monarchy  included,  in  his  journal.  The  editor  had  full  liberty 
to  accept  or  reject  the  article." 

It  was  accepted,  and  one  half  published,  [to  the  bottom  of  page  303]. 
That  portion  caused  so  much  excitement  that  a  committee  was  called 
of  the  managers,  and  the  balance  read,  and  forbidden  to  be  published, 
although  it  was  already  in  type.  The  letter,  as  thus  prepared  and 
printed,  and  half  published,  is  here  presented.  Its  only  objection,  as 
the  editor  himself  declared  in  a  conversation  afterward,  was  its  state- 
ment of  the  real  cause  of  the  anti-American  sentiment  in  England. 
He  agreed  as  to  the  coming  of  democracy  there,  and  said  that  "  if  they 
had  a  king  like  George  IV.,  they  would  be  a  republic  in  ten  years."  He 
has  since  died;  a  true, Christian  gentleman,  whose  heart  was  in  sym- 
pathy with  our  ideas  no  less  than  with  our  struggle. 

XII. 

THE  ULTIMATE  ONENESS  OF  MANKIND.  —  (Page  350.) 

The  vision  of  saints  and  poets,  the  declarations  of  prophecy,  and  the 
necessary  triumph  of  Christianity,  in  bringing  all  the  world  to  one  lan- 
guage and  one  heart,  is  well  set  forth  in  "Yesterday,  To-day,  and  For- 
ever," in  the  Millennial  Year.  The  poet  thus  describes  the  unity  of 
language : — 

Babel's  confusion  was  unlearned.    And  one 

Melodious  language,  wherein  every  thought 

Found  utterance,  overspread  the  circling  globe, 

A  language  worthy  of  the  eons  of  God. 

XIII. 
THE  MARCH  OP  THE  DARK  BRIGADE.  —  (Page  369.) 

The  following  editorial,  from  "  The  Independent "  of  that  date,  illus- 
trates the  feelings  which  the  event  excited. 

"It  is  not  often  'that  the  hub  of  the  universe'  shakes  on  its  axle. 


NOTES.  643 

But  last  Thursday  it  fell  from  its  steadfastness.  It  was  the  Fifty-fourth 
Massachusetts  regiment  which  cast  the  shadow  of  its  coming  on  our 
last  week's  columns,  that  stormed  and  took  the  city. 

"  We  gather  from  various  sources  the  incidents  of  the  march,  and  sub- 
mit to  our  readers  the  raw  materials  for  the  future  poets  and  historians. 
The  cars  from  the  neighboring  cities  came  in  crowded,  as  at  the  Prince 
of  Wales'  reception.  Extremes  meet.  The  heir  of  the  proudest  throne 
and  the  most  despised  of  mankind  created  like  furore.  The  streets 
were  thronged.  Nature  smiled  propitious.  So  did  the  citizens. 

"  About  ten  o'clock  the  cars  landed  the  regiment,  and  the  line  of 
march  was  taken  up  through  the  principal  streets.  Gilmore's  band  led 
the  column.  A  colored  band  that  did  not  play,  and  a  colored  drum 
corps  that  did,  and  well,  followed.  Then  came  the  strange  spectacle  — 
a  thousand  black  forms  and  faces.  Some  expressions  looked  hard,  and 
almost  brutal,  as  if  they  had  just  emerged  from  their  long  prison-house, 
and  had  only  two  ideas  —  liberty  and  vengeance.  Others,  and  most, 
were  refined  and  thoughtful,  and  full  of  high  inspiration. 

"They  sweep  along  from  curbstone  to  curbstone,  with  even,  steady 
tramp,  their  knapsacks  and  coats  piled  upon  their  shoulders,  their 
guns  erect  .against  them.  Nemesis  is  marching  to  South  Carolina.  Not 
shod  with  wool,  as  Horace  talks  about.  The  wool  was  on  her  head  — 
and  will  be  a  sacred  fillet  when  those  who  wear  it  shall  be  sacrificed 
upon  the  altar  of  their  country's  salvation.  No  doubt  the  slaveholders 
in  Richmond  and  Charleston  heard  the  solid  tread. 

"  They  came  to  the  State  House.  The  Governor,  Senator  Wilson, 
Adjutant-General  Schouler,  and  other  dignitaries,  were  received  into 
the  opened  lines,  and  the  march  was  continued  down  Beacon  Street. 
The  cr£me  de  la  crtme  crowded  the  aristocratic  windows.  Handker- 
chiefs fluttered,  and  loud  cheers  rent  the  air.  In  one  of  the  most  aris- 
tocratic houses,  the  residence  of  the  colonel,  colored  ladies  and  white 
stood  in  the  parlor  windows. 

"  How  those  soldiers  must  have  felt  at  such  an  ovation  !  Did  they 
remember  their  life-long  degradation?  Did  they  remember  anything 
else?  Many  had  just  been  slaves.  Their  backs  were  hardl)'  healed  of 
the  scourge.  What  contrasts  in  their  lives !  No  novelist  has  dreamed 
of  such. 

"  The  Common  was  crowded.  The  Governor  and  his  staff  marched 
around  the  straight  line  of  battle.  Never  did  his  Excellency  seem  to  feel 
and  look  so  excellent. 

"  Then  the  troops  defiled  before  him  in  company  line,  and  with  far 
better  precision  than  most  new  regiments  and  many  old  ones  exhibit. 
Thence  they  march  out  of  the  Common,  down  Tremont  Street,  down 
Court  Street,  by  the  Court-House,  chained  hardly  a  decade  ago  to 
save  Slavery  and  the  Union.  Thence  down  State  Street,  trampling  on 


644  NOTES. 

the  very  pavements  over  which  Sims  and  Burns  marched  to  their  fate, 
encompassed  by  soldiers  of  the  United  States. 

"  '  Their  sisters,  sweethearts,  and  wives,'  —  a  familiar  quotation  in 
the  notices  of  previous  departing  regiments,  but  looking  a  little  odd  \ 
in  this  new  place,  —  ran  along  beside  '  the  boys,'  giving  their  parting 
benedictions  of  smiles  and  tears,  telling  them  to  be  brave,  and  to  show 
their  blood!  The  crowds  cheer  even  The  Co urier  office  —  the  soldiers 
sing  the  John  Brown  song  —  the  boat  is  reached,  and  the  sensation  is 
solidified  into  history  of  the  United  States. 

"  All  attempts  to  express  the  feelings  of  the  crowd  or  the  soldiers  seem 
to  read  stale  and  flat.  Yet,  as  Goldsmith  said  that  the  weakest  jokes 
were  received  as  wit  by  the  circle  of  the  happy  Vicar,  so  these  attempts 
were  treated  as  successes  by  the  happy  crowd.  One  man  said  it  was  a 
verification  of  Shakespeare :  — 

Know  you  not  Pompetj  ? 

You  have  climbed  up  to  the  walls  and  b"attlements, 
To  see  Great  Pompey  pass  the  streets  of  Home. 

"  One  fact  should  be  chronicled.  Their  regimental  banner,  of  superb 
white  silk,  had  on  one  side  the  coat  of  arms  of  Massachusetts,  and  on 
the  other  a  golden  cross  on  a  golden  star,  with  IN  HOC  SIGNO  VINCES 
beneath.  This  is  the  first  Christian  banner  that  has  gone  into  our  war. 
By  a  strange,  and  yet  not  strange  providence,  God  has  made  this  de- 
spised race  the  bearers  of  His  standard.  They  are  thus  the  real  leaders 
of  the  nation." 

XIV. 
THE  PAY  OF  COLORED  SOLDIERS.  —  (Page  393.) 

Senator  Wilson,  in  his  history  of  anti-slavery  measures  in  Congress, 
narrates  the  long  struggle  to  put  the  laws  right  upon  this  subject.  It 
lasted  from  January  8  to  June  11,  18G4 ;  and  even  then  had  to  be  left 
optional  with  the  Attorney  General  to  say  whether  soldiers  from  the 
Slave  States  should  be  reckoned  as  entitled  to  the  same  pay  as  white 
soldiers.  The  President  could  not  wait  for  this  slow  action  of  Congress, 
and  under  the  pressure  of  General  Grant,  who  wished  to  get  his  army 
into  the  best  fighting  trim  before  he  started  from  Washington,  he  re- 
versed the  previous  decisions  of  his  Attorney  General,  and  pronounced 
all  soldiers  equal  in  their  pay.  Though  this  act  of  General  Grant's  was 
inspired  by  military  judgment,  it  was  none  the  less  excellent  in  its  nature 
and  in  its  effects. 


NOTES.  645 

XV. 

DEPRECIATION  OP  CONTINENTAL  CURRENCY.  —  (Page  414.) 

In  the  Annals  of  the  American  Pulpit,  Vol.  IX.,  p.  11,  are  two  or  three 
items  from  General  Muhlenberg's  correspondence,  which  shows  how 
worthless  the  Continental  currency  had  become. 

On  the  5th  of  January,  1780,  he  purchased  a  load  of  hay  for  £50  currency. 

March  10,  1780,  he  bought  a  horse  for  a  journey  from  Pennsylvania  to  Virginia, 
which  cost  him  £1025,  or  over  $5009.  The  previous  gold  value  of  the  horse  was  £15 
to  £20,  or  less  than  $100.  That  journey  of  himself  and  family  cost  him  £10,000,  or 
$50,000.  This  was  three  years  before  the  war  closed. 

XVI. 

AMERICAN  NEUTRALITY  :  ITS  HISTORY  AND  ITS  EFFECTS.  —  (Page  450.) 

These  facts  will  show  how  baneful  has  been  the  sway  of  this  doctrine 
in  our  councils,  both  upon  our  foreign  and  domestic  relations,  and  upon 
the  liberty  of  the  world. 

The  French  Revolution  began  in  1789.  The  Republic  was  established 
in  1793.  Every  American,  every  European  saw  that  both  the  Revolution 
and  the  Republic  sprang  from  our  loins.  It  was  our  first  born  among 
the  nations  —  the  beginning  of  our  strength.  It  had  consummated  itself 
in  the  execution  of  the  king ;  a  deed  as  necessary  for  their  salvation  as  it 
would  have  been  for  our  fathers  to  have  expelled  the  British  sovereign 
from  our  soil,  and  to  have  hung  him  had  he  persisted  in  demanding 
his  rights  as  separate  from  those  of  the  people.  Their  execution  of 
Louis  XVI.  is  as  justifiable  as  that  of  Charles  I. 

They  established  a  government  based  on  the  broadest  principles  of 
democracy.  The  event  was  hailed  with  enthusiasm  in  every  part  of  the 
country.  In  Boston,  an  ox  roasted  whole,  was  carried  through  the  city 
and  served  up  on  State  Street.  Sixteen  hundred  loaves  of  bread  were 
distributed,  and  the  fear  of  the  Maine  Law  being  then,  unfortunately, 
unknown  —  two  hogsheads  of  punch.  Each  child  of  the  public  schools 
received  a  cake  marked  "  Liberty  and  Equality."  Balloons  were  sent  up, 
bonfires  blazed,  the  State  House  was  illuminated,  and  a  public  dinner  at 
Faneuil  Hall  was  presided  over  by  Lieutenant  Governor  Samuel  Adams, 
the  father  of  the  Revolution.  Governor  Mifnin  presided  at  a  like  jubilee 
in  Philadelphia.  Charleston  was  ablaze  with  the  same  enthusiasm.  For 
once,  and  for  the  only  time  till  now,  Massachusetts  and  South  Carolina 
struck  hands  in  favor  of  universal  liberty.  They  are  coming  together 
again ! 

Then  came  the  practical  test  of  their  zeal.    The  Republic  was  instant- 


646  NOTES. 

ly  met  with  an  offensive  alliance  of  Great  Britain,  Austria,  Prussia, 
Sardinia,  and  New  Netherlands.  They  declared  war  against  it.  They 
mustered  their  forces  for  its  subjugation.  The  terrific  cloud  of  Ameri- 
can independence  and  equality  had  moved  across  the  seas,  had  broken 
over  their  heads  in  the  deluge  of  France.  If  they  should  remain  quiet,  it 
would  speedily  drown  their  thrones  in  its  mighty  floods.  They  take 
arms  against  the  sea  of  troubles.  France  sees  her  peril,  and  well  she 
may.  A  mass  of  emancipated  serfs,  led  by  men  who  had  been  equally 
despised  and  but  little  more  privileged  than  themselves,  —  what  can  they 
do  against  the  European  world?  They  look  to  America,  their  nearest 
friend,  their  only  parent.  Citizen  Genet  is  sent  as  embassador  by  the 
Girondist  government,  as  noble  and  pure  a  body  of  rulers  as  ever  failed 
or  triumphed  in  any  land.  Our  first  Congress  that  passed  the  Declara- 
tion, our  last  that  has  just  confirmed  it  by  its  corresponding  acts,  were 
not  more  unselfish,  broad-minded,  sagacious,  and  honest  than  the  govern- 
ment that  executed  Louis  and  established  the  French  Republic. 

Genet  landed  at  Charleston,  and  was  welcomed  with  great  rejoicings. 
His  entrance  into  Philadelphia  was  an  ovation.  His  mission  was  public- 
ly proclaimed  and  heartily  indorsed.  He  said  that  his  object  was  "  to 
draw  the  United  States,  as  far  as  possible,  into  making  common  cause  with 
France."  His  government  "  desired  to  effect  a  true  family  compact  on  a 
liberal  and  fraternal  basis,  on  which  to  raise  up  the  commercial  and  politi- 
cal-systems of  two  peoples,  all  whose  interests  were  confounded."  Thus 
did  she  look  to  us,  her  mother,  in  the  hour  of  her  first  trial.  She  hastened 
to  us,  she  begged,  she  entreated  us  to  aid  her  in  maintaining  her  lib- 
erties. 

But  while  the  people  were  willing,  another  spirit  ruled  the  government. 
It  hastened,  with  equal  zeal  and  alacrity,  to  identify  itself  with  the  enemies 
both  of  the  country  and  its  principles.  The  doctrine  of  Neutrality  was 
then  born  into  the  political  world  —  a  cup  that  has  since  been  faithfully 
commended  to  our  unwilling  lips,  by  the  power  that  then  won  the  chief- 
est  benefit  from  its  creation.  How  perfectly  the  type  and  antitype 
agree.  England's  course  toward  us  is  exactly  copied  after  that  which  we 
pursued  against  the  French  Republic.  As  soon  as  war  was  proclaimed 
Washington  called  his  cabinet  together.  Hamilton,  an  aristocrat,  and 
almost  monarchist,  proposed  to  them,  in  writing,  certain  questions,  all 
favoring  the  doctrine  of  neutrality,  none  of  fraternity.  He  sought  to 
commit  them  to  his  side  before  they  had  assembled.  Jefferson  opposed 
it,  or  sought  for  such  a  moderate  and  transient  expression  of  it  as  he 
hoped  might  be  carried  in  the  cabinet,  and  knew  that  the  winds  of  popu- 
lar feeling  and  the  force  of  events  would  soon  sweep  away.  Hamilton 
prevailed,  and  Washington  issued  his  proclamation,  April  22,  1793,  in 
less  than  a  fortnight  after  the  news  reached  him  of  the  declaration  of 
war  by  the  allies,  and  while  the  embassador  of  the  new  republic  was 


NOTES.  647 

known  to  be  on  his  way  to  the  capital.  How  strikingly  does  the  Queen's 
proclamation,  in  less  than  a  fortnight  after  the  news  of  the  fall  of  Sumter 
reaches  England,  and  while  our  embassador  is  on  his  way  thither,  pho- 
tograph our  own  conduct,  and  hoist  us  with  our  own  petard. 

Citizen  Genet  was  coldly  received  by  the  President.  In  the  pressure 
of  his  necessities,  and  relying  on  the  enthusiasm  of  the  people  to  protect 
him  against  the  decree  of  their  government,  he  presumed  to  issue  com- 
missions and  make  spoliations  of  British  commerce  in  our  waters.  This 
brought  him  into  conflict  with  our  authorities  and  damaged  his  position, 
though  not  enough  to  lose  him  the  moral  and  hearty  support  of  the  peo- 
ple. The  country  was  alive  with  excitement.  The  word  Democrat  was 
imported  from  France,  and  adopted  by  its  sympathizers.  Jefferson  allied 
himself  so  strongly  with  their  cause  that  he  was  compelled  to  leave  the 
cabinet.  Madison  was  alike  its  earnest  and  active  friend.  Monroe  had 
pledged  his  country  to  the  Republic  in  Paris,  and  had  been  recalled  by 
the  government  for  his  ardor  for  liberty,  only  to  be  hailed  everywhere  by 
the  people.  The  next  Congress,  the  first  of  the  second  administration, 
was  carried  against  the  administration  and  neutrality.  Frederick  Muh- 
lenberg,  of  Pennsylvania,  was  elected  speaker  on  this  issue.  Albert 
Gallatin  was  chosen  senator  from  Pennsylvania  on  the  same  question. 
Bache,  Franklin's  grandson,  and  the  inheritor  of  his  principles,  was  its 
editorial  champion.  There  never  was  a  movement,  in  our  political  his- 
tory, better  officered,  more  popular,  or  more  just,  and  yet  it  failed. 
Selfishness,  timidity,  greed  of  wealth,  opportunities,  which  increased 
vastly  with  the  prospective  ruin  of  the  English  carrying  trade,  through 
French  privateers  —  these  moved  us  from  the  principles  of  brotherhood 
and  liberty  by  which  we  had  become  a  nation.  We  not  only  refused  to 
do  to  others  as  we  would  that  they  should  do  to  us ;  we  refused  to  do 
as  they  had  done  to  us.  We  had  won  our  liberty  solely  though  the  help 
of  France.  Now  she  may  groan  and  die,  while  we  look  out  for 
ourselves. 

The  immaturity  of  our  institutions,  and  their  experimental  character, 
were  pleaded  as  an  excuse  for  our  course.  But  we  find  as  the  result, 
what  we  knew  in  our  hearts  at  the  beginning,  that  the  only  way  for  a 
nation,  as  for  an  individual,  to  maintain  their  rectitude,  is  to  work  right- 
eousness. He  who  saves  his  life  shall  lose  it.  We  lost  ours  at  the  very 
moment  we  sought  thus  sinfully  and  selfishly  to  save  it.  Most  honor- 
able as  were  the  motives  of  Washington,  his  judgment  failed  him.  The 
enthusiasm  of  youth  yielded  to  the  fears  of  age.  He  shrank  from  war,  as 
well  he  should ;  but  he  also  shrank  from  confidence  in  the  cause  he  had 
so  greatly  assisted  in  establishing,  and  whose  preservation  might  demand 
war.  He  distrusted  the  people.  He  revealed  his  real  feelings  when  he 
told  Jefferson  that  an  American  monarchy  "  was  not  what  he  Avas  afraid 
of:  his  fears  were  from  another  quarter;  that  there  was  more  danger 


648  NOTES. 

of  anarchy  being  introduced."*  The  only  right  way  to  repress  both 
dangerous  tendencies  was  to  keep  the  Republic  alive  with  its  own  spirit ; 
to  make  it  zealous  for  its  radical  ideas,  and  faithfully  support  them 
wherever  they  were  in  peril. 

This  fearful  spirit  possessed  the  whole  of  the  second  administration  of 
Washington,  and  is  the  controlling  animus  of  his  most  famous  paper  — 
the  Farewell  Address.  In  fact,  the  chief  cause  and  topic  of  that  docu- 
ment are  not  the  perils  of  disunion  at  home,  but  of  union  abroad.  Its 
strongest  and  most  animated  sentences  are  directed  against  this  duty. 
Its  sentences  so  cold,  and  unworthy  of  the  great  soul  that  penned  them, 
are  the  very  gospel  of  selfishness.  How  they  contrast  with  the  gospel  of 
humanity  which  Jefferson  wrote,  and  Congress  proclaimed,  not  twenty 
years  before,  and  of  which  Washington  had  been  the  military  executor. 
A  few  extracts  will  confirm  our  position.  Far  below  the  highest  states- 
manship is  this  statement  of  the  relation  of  great  powers  to  each  other. 

"  The  great  rule  of  conduct  for  us  in  regard  to  foreign  nations  is  in 
extending  our  commercial  relations,  to  have  with  them  as  little  political 
connection  as  possible.  So  far  as  we  have  already  formed  engagements, 
let  them  be  fulfilled  with  perfect  good  faith.  Here  let  them  stop." 

For  such  an  embargo  on  all  intercourse  but  that  of  a  mercenary  char- 
acter, he  gives  this  reason  :  — 

"  Europe  has  a  set  of  primary  interests  which  to  us  have  none  or  a 
very  remote  relation.  Hence  she  must  be  engaged  in  frequent  con- 
troversies, the  causes  of  which  are  essentially  foreign  to  our  concerns. 
Hence,  therefore,  it  must  be  unwise  in  us  to  implicate  ourselves  by 
artificial  ties  in  the  ordinary  vicissitudes  of  her  politics,  or  the  ordinary 
combinations  and  collisions  of  her  friendships  or  enmities." 

And  yet,  not  long  before,  Merlin  de  Douay,  the  president  of  the  con- 
vention, which  had  overthrown  Robespierre,  and  wiped  out  the  blood 
stains  of  his  administration,  in  welcoming  Monroe  as  Washington's 
embassador,  had  used  these  words  :  — 

"  The  French  people  have  not  forgotten  that  it  is  to  the  American 
people  that  they  owe  their  initiation  into  the  cause  of  liberty.  It  was  in 
admiring  the  sublime  insurrection  of  the  American  people  against  Britain, 
once  haughty,  now  so  humble,  it  was  in  themselves  taking  arms  to 
second  your  courageous  efforts,  and  in  cementing  your  independence  by 
the  blood  of  our  brave  warriors,  that  the  French  people  learned  in  their 
turn  to  break  the  scepter  of  tyranny,  and  to  elevate  the  statue  of  liberty 
on  the  wreck  of  a  throne  supported  during  fourteen  centuries  only  by 
crimes  and  corruption." 

Does  this  sound  as  if  "  Europe  had  a  set  of  primary  interests,  which  to 
us  have  none  or  a  very  remote  interest "  ?  Were  controversies  raging  on 

*  Irving's  AVashington,  V.  p.  113. 


NOTES.  649 

such  a  field  foreign  to  our  concerns?  Alas,  Great  Master,  thy  noble 
heart  forgot  its  inspirations  in  its  fears.  In  truth,  the  only  political 
activity  in  all  Europe,  making  her  quake  and  rend  under  its  mighty  tread, 
was  the  gathering  and  wrestling  of  armies,  bearing  on  their  several  ban- 
ners each  but  one  sentence,  learned  in  our  school  alone  —  "  The  Rights 
of  Kings,"  "  the  Rights  of  Man."  The  first  born  child  of  America  was 
struggling  in  its  cradle  with  the  crowned  hydras  of  tyranny ;  yet  its 
mother  refuses  to  hear  and  to  help  her  throttled  babe  —  and  that,  under 
the  plea  that  these  "  controversies  are  foreign  to  her  concerns." 

There  is  much  more  in  like  vein.  The  Atlantic  is  spoken  of  as 
separating  us.  It  was  forgotten  that  the  Atlantic  did  not  separate  us 
from  our  enemy  and  our  allies  in  the  great  fight  of  the  Revolution ;  and 
that  Franklin's  diplomacy  at  Paris,  as  much  if  not  more  than  the  sword 
of  Washington,  had  achieved  our  liberties.  Yet  with  these  clearest  of 
facts  before  him,  he  says,  — 

"Our  detached  and  distant  situation  invites  and  enables  us  to  pursue 
a  different  course  [than  to  intervene.] 

"  Why,"  he  exclaims,  "  forgo  the  advantages  of  so  peculiar  a  situa- 
tion? Why  quit  our  own  to  stand  on  foreign  ground?  Why  by  inter- 
weaving our  destiny  with  that  of  any  part  of  Europe,  entangle  our  peace 
and  prosperity  in  the  toils  of  European  ambition,  rivalship,  interest, 
humor,  or  caprice  ?  It  is  our  true  policy  to  steer  clear  of  all  permanent 
alliances  with  any  portion  of  the  world." 

Is  not  this  the  gospel  of  selfishness  ?  Is  this  the  true  and  eternal 
principle  of  nationality?  Is  this  rightfully  reading  our  own  history? 
Had  Holland,  and  Spain,  and  Russia,  and  France  so  treated  us,  he 
would  long  before  have  been  hung  as  a  rebel,  or  have  been  a  fugitive 
and  vagabond  on  the  earth,  while  the  people  over  whom  he  ruled  would 
still  have  been  "  born  colonists,  born  slaves." 

The  farther  history  of  those  times  is  not  without  its  painfully  ap- 
propriate lessons.  Hamilton,  sought  in  the  spirit  and  intent  of  the 
neutrality  act,  as  England  has,  in  our  late  war,  to  abrogate  the  force  of 
the  treaties  we  had  made  with  France,  and  on  substantially  the  same 
basis  :  — 

"  Because  she  had  changed  her  government  she  could  not  hold  us  to 
the  responsibility  to  treaties  made  with  a  view  to  a  totally  different  state 
of  things,  and  which,  if  carried  out,  might  impose  obligations  'on  us 
and  expose  us  to  dangers  never  dreamed  of  when  the  treaties  were 
made."  * 

Again,  the  French  Republic  and  the  American  began  to  quarrel  on  the 
same  grounds  that  we  have  fallen  apart  from  England.  They  seized  our 
ships  carrying  contrabrand  of  war  to  their  enemies.  We  claimed  that 

*  Hildreth's  History,  IV.  p.  414. 


650  NOTES. 

free  ships  made  free  goods.  They  acknowledged  the  principle,  but 
plead  necessity,  as  Mr.  Seward  said  we  might  have  done  in  the  Trent 
affair.  We  glowered,  talked  big,  and  insultingly  demanded,  as  England 
has  of  us,  retraction  under  threat  of  war.  It  was  precisely  what  John 
Bright  calls  England's  course  with  us,  "a  cold  neutrality."  Cast  off  by 
us,  who  should  have  fraternized  with  her,  she  turned  upon  us  in  hate 
and  scorn,  just  as  we  have  upon  England.  She  defied  us,  and  trampling 
over  her  foes  without  our  aid,  despised  us  and  proceeded  to  yet  greater 
lengths  of  impudent  contempt  for  our  claims.  Our  neutrality  was  push- 
ing us  into  a  war  with  our  only  child,  our  best  and  only  friend.  Wash- 
ington's declaration  that  "  our  detached  and  distant  situation"  saved  us 
from  all  need  of  exercising  the  feelings  of  brotherhood  and  delivered 
us  from  the  toils  of  European  ambition,  interest,  and  caprice,  had  hardly 
been  uttered  and  he  retired  to  his  longed-for  retreat,  before  he  was  sum- 
moned forth  to  lead  our  armies  against  our  ally,  who  had  been  made  our 
enemy  by  the  principles  and  conduct  that  had  animated  that  address. 
The  European  complications  of  France  alone  prevented  the  horrid  sight 
of  the  only  two  republics  in  the  world,  neither  of  them  ten  years  old,  and 
separated  by  a  vast  and  stormy  ocean,  springing  at  each  others  throats 
in  mutual  ferocity.  How  would  the  monarchies  of  Europe  have  rejoiced 
at  that  spectacle  !  Why  did  they  not  suspend  their  assaults  upon  France 
and  allow  Washington  and  Lafayette  to  thus  throttle  and  destroy  each 
other?  Thank  God,  those  powers  by  the  swiftness  of  their  own  rancor- 
ous hatred  prevented  that  catastrophe. 

Meantime,  Massachusetts  had  been  bribed  into  silence  by  giving  her 
son  the  Presidency,  and  Samuel  Adams,  closed  the  last  of  her  truly 
democratic  rulers,  not  to  be  begun  again  till  more  4han  half  a  century 
had  rolled  away.  Governor  Andrew  was  his  first  political  son  that  reigned 
his  stead.  Hers  was  a  wilderness  wandering  of  more  than  forty  years. 

When  the  Democrats  came  into  power,  the  French  Republic  had 
become  far  advanced  towards  a  military  despotism,  constrained  to  it,  by 
our  refusal  to  aid  her  in  preserving  her  liberties.  The  influences  of  the 
contrary  doctrines  of  the  late  leaders,  and  especially  our  warlike  threats 
and  preparations,  conspired  with  these  tendencies  to  repress  our  enthu- 
siasm. Still  Jefferson  sympathized  with  France,  reversed  the  current 
that  set  so  strongly  towards  England,  and  brought  on  a  war  with  that 
power,  though  too  late  to  preserve  the  liberties  of  Europe. 

Munroe,  his  pupil,  and  warm  friend  of  the  French  people,  made  his 
name  immortal  by  declaring  the  doctrine  that  Republicanism  should 
possess  this  continent :  a  step  exactly  opposite  to  that  which  Hamilton 
and  Washington  had  taken,  for,  it  could  be  maintained  only  by  permanent 
alliances  with  foreign  powers  and  armed  intervention  in  behalf  of  those 
foreign  republics.  It  is  a  step  too  that  may  yet  lead  us,  as  we  have  lately 
seen,  by  the  way  of  Mexico  or  some  other  invaded  Republic,  to  the  high 


NOTES.  651 

table  land  from  which  they  had  descended  —  the  ground  that  our  af- 
finities and  duties  are  limited  by  no  oceans,  tongues,  or  creeds,  but  that 
where  "Liberty  dwells  there  is  our  country;"  and  where  liberty  is 
struggling  against  armed  foes  to  maintain  its  hold,  there  should  our  eye 
melt  in  sympathy,  our  arm  be  revealed  in  salvation. 

All  the  results  of  this  doctrine  are  not  yet  innumerated.  By  the  usual 
movements  of  Providence,  the  evils  it  was  hoped  that  it  must  have  sup- 
pressed have  flourished  the  more  for  its  enactment,  while  the  good  it  had 
hoped  to  win,  turned  to  ashes  on  its  lips. 

Democratic  ideas  troubled  the  aristocratic  tastes  of  Hamilton,  Adams, 
and  Washington.  Though  not  monarchists  they  were  not  Democrats. 
They  distrusted  the  people.  The  French  Republic  was  a  perfect 
democracy.  It  struck  at  the  vitals  of  their  theories.  They  feared  the 
rising  waves.  They  sought  to  sweep  out  the  Atlantic  tide  with  their 
neutral  broom.  They  were  washed  away  by  it.  Hamilton  and  Adams 
lived  to  see  their  power  utterly  broken,  and  themselves  and  their  ideas 
"in  the  deep  bosom  of  the  ocean  buried."  Washington,  by  a  kind 
Providence,  was  relieved  from  the  mournful  spectacle.  A  dread  of 
foreign  war  also  troubled  them.  Our  civil  war  with  its  streams  of 
fraternal  blood  flowed  from  that  unbrotherly  timidity. 

Their  third  motive  was  the  most  honorable  and  most  powerful,  and 
most  dearly  has  it  been  paid  for.  The  country  must  be  unified.  All  dis- 
tracting influences  must  be  kept  in  abeyance.  A  new  war  with  England 
in  behalf  of  human  rights  will  breed  distractions  at  home.  So  thought 
these  great  and  good  men.  Total  mistake !  It  would  have  condensed 
the  people  as  never  before  and  never  since.  From  the  hour  that  neu- 
trality was  adopted  disunion  began.  Charleston  and  Boston  were 
enthusiastically  united  in  the  cause  of  Freedom  and  Republicanism  in 
Europe.  The  young  men  who  had  been  born  and  reared  during  the  com- 
motions that  had  preceded  and  accomplished  their  independence,  were, 
as  the  young  devotees  of  a  triumphant  principle  usually  are,  more  earnest 
in  their  defense  and  propagation  than  the  men  who  had  established 
them.  The  young  men  of  South  Carolina,  of  Pennsylvania,  of  Virginia, 
of  New  England  vied  with  each  other  in  their  laudations  of  their  brethren 
in  France.  Munroe,  Madison,  Bache,  Gallatin,  Muhlenberg,  Randolph, 
the  men  who  soon  obtained  and  for  twenty  years  retained  the  leadership 
of  the  nation,  represented  these  ideas. 

Had  they  been  heard,  the  two  great  evils  of  disunion  and  slavery  had 
never  raised  their  snaky  crests  in  the  land,  while  the  outside  evil  of 
dominant  monarchism  and  hostility  to  our  existence,  would  not  have 
conspired  with  these  inward  foes  to  compass  our  ruin.  He  that  saves  his 
life  shall  lose  it. 

Our  present  war  is  thus  legitimately  traced  to  that  unmanly  shrinking 
from  a  just  war.  The  most  tyrannic  and  abominable  of  aristocracies 


652  NOTES. 

ever  known  in  the  civilized  or  uncivilized  world  —  an  aristocracy  based 
exclusively  on  the  ownership  of  human  flesh,  sprung  from  this  unjust 
fear  and  dislike  of  popular  rights  ;  and  the  very  Union,  to  save  which  all 
these  sacrifices  of  principle  and  humanity  were  made,  has  been  rent  by 
the  hands  of  its  children,  and  has  only  been  cemented  by  rivers  of 
fraternal  blood. 


XVII. 

DIFFERENCE  BETWEEN  AMERICAN  AND  BRITISH  NEUTRALITY. 
(Page  452.) 

In  this  analogy  we  would  not  be  understood  as  granting  to  the  British 
and  French  governments  the  protection  of  our  course  for  their  own  mis- 
conduct. It  shows  that  our  error  bred  mischief  to  ourselves,  not  that 
it  approves  their  crime.  They  appropriated  our  invention  to  their  own 
use,  and  in  directions  that  we  never  approved.  Our  neutrality  was  ex- 
ercised between 'actual  powers,  with  whom  we  had  treaties  of  alliance. 
We  did  not  proclaim  neutrality  between  the  French  throne  and  the 
Directory,  —  the  throne  was  abolished,  and  a  government  unquestioned 
exercised  sway  throughout  the  whole  territory,  It  was  between  this 
de  facto,  this  recognized  government,  and  foreign  powers  that  we  de- 
clined to  interfere.  This  we  had  a  perfectly  legal  right  to  do.  We 
were  under  no  obligation  of  international  law  to  cast  ourselves  into  the 
arena.  Our  complaint  has  been  based  wholly  on  moral  grounds  —  the 
higher  law  of  amity  and  justice,  which  demanded  of  us  the  help  that  we 
refused  to  give. 

Not  so  with  British  neutrality.  That  was  illegally  as  well  as  unnat- 
urally exercised  :  that  not  merely  refused  to  form  compacts,  it  violated 
those  already  formed;  that  practically  and  intentionally  interfered  in 
favor  of  a  rebellion  in  the  interests  of  slavery  against  a  power  to  which 
it  was  bound  by  solemn  vows  of  treaty.  Washington's  proclamation 
did  not  invest  the  French  Republic  with  nationality  ;  it  had  that  already ; 
Victoria  did  the  Confederate.  Washington  was  scrupulous  to  regard 
British  rights  in  our  waters,  to  the  extent  of  incurring  the  hostility  of 
France  and  of  his  own  people.  Britain  was  as  unscrupulous  in  its  in- 
difference to  American  rights  in  British  waters,  although  those  rights 
were  supported  by  treaty  obligations  as  well  as  the  cause  they  repre- 
sented. America  proclaimed  neutrality  between  recognized  political 
powers ;  Britain  between  a  nation  and  a  rebellious  faction.  America 
shunned  alliance  in  favor  of  liberty  and  the  rights  of  man ;  Britain  so- 
licited one  in  favor  of  the  vilest  despotism  and  the  most  hideous  bondage 
the  world  has  ever  known.  America  adopted  this  perfectly  legal  course, 
to  preserve  her  infantile  democracy  from  the  risk  of  annihilation  on 


NOTES.  653 

European  fields.  Britain,  her  perfectly  illegal  one,  that  she  might  de- 
stroy this  matured  democracy  in  its  last  national  stronghold,  and  insure, 
through  the  universal  prevalence  of  Monarchism,  the  perpetuation  of 
her  own  political  institutions. 

While,  therefore,  we  are  justly  blamable,  morally  speaking,  for  the 
course  we  pursued,  and  have  suffered  greatly  for  that  selfish  fear;  while 
we  have  given  our  foes  a  word  and  an  act  that  they  needed,  and  have 
hastened  to  use  against  us,  we  are  not  responsible  for  their  mode  of 
using  that  word,  which  is,  in  every  respect,  novel,  unjust,  and  in  viola- 
tion of  solemn  obligations  and  international  law.  Mr.  Bemis,  in  his  able 
pamphlet,  as  well  as  Mr.  Sumner  and  M.  Gasparin,  prove  this  conclu- 
sively. 

XVIII. 

AMERICAN  INFLUENCE  ON  THE  WORLD.  —  (Page  460.) 

Very  forcibly  is  this  put  by  M.  Montalembert,  in  his  "L'Eglise  Libre 
dans  L'Etat  Libre."  What  confession  can  surpass  this:  "La  Societe 
nouvelle,  la  democratie  pour  1'appeler  par  son  nom,  existe;  on  peut 
rneme  dire  qu'elle  existe  seule,  tant  ce  qui  n'est  pas  a  peu  de  force  et 
de  vie.  Dans  une  moitie  de  1'Europe  elle  est  deja.  souveraine ;  elle  le 
sera  demain  dans  1'autre  moitie." 

A  new  society  is  in  existence,  called  democratic.  One  can  hardly 
say  that  it  exists  merely,  since  it  has  no  small  strength  or  vitality.  In 
one  half  of  Europe  it  is  already  sovereign.  It  will  be  in  the  other  half 
to-morrow. 

XIX. 

JEFFERSON  DAVIS  AND  INDEPENDENCE.  —  (Page  540.) 

The  persistency  with  which  Mr.  Davis  clung  to  the  idea  of  indepen- 
dence was  most  remarkable.  In  the  summer  of  1864  he  said  to  Messrs. 
Jaques  and  Gilmore,  an  informal  commission  who  visited  Richmond, 
"We  are  not  fighting  for  slavery,  we  are  fighting  for  independence; 
and  that  or  extermination  we  will  have "  After  the  meeting  of  his 
commissioners,  Messrs.  Stevens,  Hunter  and  Campbell,  in  February, 
1865,  with  Mr.  Seward  and  Mr.  Lincoln,  at  Fortress  Monroe,  he  said, 
at  a  public  meeting  in  Richmond,  "  Sooner  than  we  should  ever  be 
united  again,  I  would  be  willing  to  yield  up  everything  I  have  on  earth, 
and  if  it  were  possible,  would  sacrifice  my  life  a  thousand  times." 
Even  at  Danville,  after  he  had  fled  from  Richmond,  he  issued  a  proc- 
lamation, in  which  he  declared,  "  I  will  never  consent  to  abandon  to 
the  enemy  one  foot  of  the  soil  of  any  of  the  States  of  the  Confederacy. 


654  NOTES. 

No  peace  shall  be  made  with  the  infamous  invaders.  If  by  stress 
of  numbers  we  should  be  compelled  to  withdraw  from  her  [Virginia's] 
limits,  or  those  of  any  other  border  State,  again  and  again  will  we  re- 
turn, until  the  baffled  and  exhausted  enemy  shall  abandon  in  despair 
his  endless  and  impossible  task  of  making  slaves  of  a  people  resolved 
to  be  free." 

This  was  surely  a  strong  will,  surpassing  even  Pharaoh's.  He  yielded 
when  his  land  was  filled  witli  his  dead.  Not  so  his  antitype.  Milton's 
imagination  of  another  enemy  of  God  and  man  is  exactly  fulfilled  in 
the  language  of  Jefferson  Davis  :  — 

What  though  the  field  be  lost; 
All  is  not  lost;  the  unconquerable  will, 
And  study  of  revenge,  immortal  hate  ! 
And  courage  never  to  submit  or  yield, 
And  what  is  else  not  to  be  overcome, 
That  glory  never  shall  His  wrath  or  might 
Extort  from  me ! 

XX. 

LINCOLN'S  FIRST  SPEECH.  —  (Page  553.) 

It  is  reported,  on  good  authority,  that  when  Mr.  Lincoln  was  a  candi- 
date for  the  legislature,  at  twenty-three  years  of  age,  after  returning  a 
victorious  captain  from  the  Black  Hawk  war,  he  made  the  following 
speech : — 

Fellow  Citizens .-  —  You  all  know  me.  I  am  humble  Abraham  Lincoln.  My 
speech  will  be  short  and  sweet  like  an  old  woman's  dance.  I  am  in  favor  of  a  pro- 
tective tariff,  internal  improvement,  and  a  uniform  currency.  If  elected,  I  shall 
serve  you  as  well  as  I  can.  If  defeated,  I  shall  try  to  feel  not  very  bad  about  it. 

He  failed  in  the  district,  though  he  received  all  the  votes  of  his  pre- 
cinct but  nine.  That  speech  prefigured  his  presidential  career.  Its 
three  points  were  never  so  completely  carried  out  by  the  national  gov- 
ernment as  in  his  administration ;  the  highest  tariff,  the  greatest  system 
of  internal  improvement,  even  to  the  taking  possession  and  the  running 
of  many  railroads,  and  a  remarkably  uniform  currency,  were  its  charac- 
teristics. The  figure  he  uses  is  very  humorous,  and  very  like  him. 


XXI. 

ENGLISH  AND  IRISH  SLAVE  TRADE.  —  (Page  GOT.) 

In  Charles  Kingsley's  "  Hereward,  or  the  Last  of  the  English,"  one 
of  his  characters,  Martin  Lightfoot,  servant  of  Hereford,  thus  describes 
his  parentage.  Its  veri-similitude  to  Southern  slavery  is  striking : 


NOTES.  655 

I  was  born  in  Ireland,  Watcrford  town.  My  mother  was  an  English  slave,  one 
of  those  that  Karl  Godwin's  wife,  —  not  this  one  that  is  now,  Gyda,  [the  famous 
Godivaof  Coventry,]  but  the  old  one,  King  Canute's  sister,  —  used  to  sell  out  of 
England  by  the  score,  tied  together  with  ropes,  boys  and  girls  from  Bristol  town. 
Her  master,  my  father  that  was,  [how  perfectly  Southern,  this]  got  tired  of  her, 
and  wanted  to  give  her  away  to  one  of  his  kerns.  She  would  not  have  that,  BO 
he  hung  her  up,  hand  and  foot,  and  beat  her  that  she  died. 


XXII. 
WHAT  WAS  THE  COMPLEXION  OF  CHRIST? — (Page  622.) 

"It  still  makes  us  look  on  many  a  human  face  with  repulsion  which  is 
of  the  very  complexion  of  the  mother  of  our  Lord,  nay,  of  the  Lord 
himself." 

It  is  impossible,  of  course,  to  declare  certainly  the  complexion  of  our 
Savior.  Our  only  guides  are  the  people  of  the  land  where  He  lived. 
Some  fancy  He  was  a  white  man.  But  this  could  not  be,  except  in  vio- 
lation of  every  law  of  race.  The  natives  of  Palestine,  Jews  and  Arabs, 
except  the  few  of  the  former,  imported  from  Germany,  are  of  a  brown 
complexion,  almost  the  color  of  the  bright  brown  mulatto.  The  women 
of  Nazareth,  who  still  gather  at  the  well  of  Annunciation^  are  of  this 
dusky  hue.  The  most  beautiful  lady  we  saw  abroad,  one  of  the  love- 
liest we  ever  looked  upon,  was  a  brown  Bethlehem  Jewess,  who  passed 
us  at  the  tomb  of  Rachel,  on  her  donkey,  with  her  brown,  bearded,  and 
turbaned  lord  and  lover  walking  at  her  side,  a  perfect  type  of  the  Rachel 
and  Jacob  of  four  thousand  years  before.  Just  such  complexions  may 
one  see  to-day  in  those  who  were  but  lately  Southern  slaves.  A  very 
comely  and  attractive  Bedouin,  of  a  bright  brown  complexion,  went  up 
the  pyramids  with  us  and  stood  under  the  sphynx.  When  asked  to  come 
to  America,  he  replied,  "  You  will  sell  me."  We  had  been  selling  mul- 
titudes of  his  complexion  for  generations.  Dean  Stanley  describes 
Abraham  as  a  Bedouin  sheik.  Except  in  the  faith,  he  says,  "In  every 
aspect  the  likeness  is  complete  between  the  Bedouin  chief  of  the  present 
day  and  the  Bedouin  chief  who  came  from  Chaldea  nearly  four  thousand 
years  ago."  One  of  these  "aspects"  in  complexion,  and  the  Arab  of 
Palestine  and  the  Wilderness,  is  very  like  Frederic  Douglass  in  this  par- 
ticular. Abraham  and  his  wife  were  both  of  the  present  wandering  race. 
Isaac's  wife  was  of  his  parents'  parents'  Mesopotamian  origin  —  and  so 
was  Jacob's.  Joseph's  was  an  Egyptian  lady  of  color.  Moses  married 
an  Ethiopian.  Salmon  married  the  Canaanite  Rahab,  Boaz  the  brown 
Moabitess  beauty,  Ruth.  David's  Bathsheba  was  a  Hittite,  a  wild  slip 
of  the  land,  very  comely,  but  as  far  from  white  as  from  black.  Solomon 
had  a  swarthy  daughter  of  Pharaoh  to  wife.  The  later  marriages  were 
no  lighter ;  and  undoubtedly  Mary  was  of  the  likeness  as  well  as  lineage 


656  NOTES.    .. 

of  David  and  Bathsheba  and  Ruth  and  Rahab  and  Rachel  and  Rebecca. 
Jesus  Christ  stood  midway  between  the  complexions  of  man,  that  lie 
might  lay  His  hand  upon  botli  and  blend  both  together  in  Himself.  The 
Asiatic  is  the  solvent  of  the  Caucasian  and  the  Negro,  and  his  color  is 
almost  exactly  reproduced  in  the  mulatto  of  America,  the  amalgam  of 
the  two  opposite  complexions.  A  light-haired,  light-skinned  Italian,  or 
a  dark-skinned  German,  is  far  more  natural  than  a  light-skinned  native 
of  that  hot  clime,  and  these  are  extremely  rare.  Every  Arab,  wild  or 
tame,  is  of  one  color,  and  that  is  almost  exactly  the  hue  of  the  mixed 
blood  of  America,  whom  we  so  foolishly  and  falsely  profess  to  naturally 
abhor.  "They  are  of  the  very  complexion  of  the  mother  of  our  Lord, 
nay,  of  our  Lord  himself." 


